


Hang the Apple on the Tree

by a_big_apple



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Ensemble Cast, F/F, F/M, Historical References, Kid Fic, Long Span of Time, M/M, Multi, Original Character(s), Post-Series, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:52:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 41,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: Arthur wakes from his death to find himself in Avalon, and slowly learns the rules of his strange afterlife through a series of difficult conversations.  In Camelot, life must go on without him, but he has unwittingly left a little piece of himself behind.  As Queen Guinevere takes the kingdom in new directions, Merlin must find ways to continue guarding Arthur, and his legacy, until they are finally together again.





	1. The Port of Avalon Part I

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks to my ACBB artist, [DYlogger](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DYlogger/pseuds/DYlogger), who made all of the beautiful art for this story!! (Also, [check out the beautiful art](https://dylogger.tumblr.com/post/149996971753/art-dy-acbb-illustrations-for-the-triskelions) for DYlogger's other ACBB partner!)

 

O Merlin in your crystal cave

Deep in the diamond of the day,

Will there ever be a singer

Whose music will smooth away

The furrow drawn by Adam's finger

Across the memory and the wave?

Or a runner who'll outrun

Man's long shadow driving on,

Break through the gate of memory

And hang the apple on the tree?

Will your magic ever show

The sleeping bride shut in her bower,

The day wreathed in its mound of snow

and Time locked in his tower?  - Edwin Muir (1927)

 

**PART I**

 

**The Port of Avalon Part I**

 

The rocking of the boat and the scrape of its hull against land brings Arthur slowly back to awareness.  It’s bright all around him, too bright to open his eyes, so he listens for a little while to the sound of water and begins to assess his condition.  In careful sequence he tests his extremities, and finds fingers and toes and hands and feet and arms and legs all in order.  His head feels muzzy with sleep or unconsciousness, but this is hardly a new feeling, so he lets it alone.  In the distance, carried as though over miles, he catches a faint sound like someone sobbing, and he begins to remember.

Merlin leaning over him, around him, trembling.  A wound, a pain unlike any he’s felt before, radiating fingers of hurt through his chest as though reaching for his heart.  Carefully, he contracts the muscles of his abdomen, feeling out the injury, and is disturbed to discover that nothing hurts in the slightest.  

“Open your eyes, Arthur,” a quiet voice urges, and he startles, sitting up too fast.  The boat sways and his head spins dizzily, and for a moment or two after his eyes are open he can’t see a thing for the brightness all around.  Slowly they adjust, and Arthur takes in the boat, the bed of branches on which he sits, kindling that clearly was never lit.  He looks further, and sees nothing but water ringed around by mist, and a grassy shore that rises up into a hill.  At the top there stands a tower, strange and solitary, but nowhere that he can see is there a person who might have spoken.

“In the water,” says the voice, as though reading his thoughts, and he leans over the side of the boat.  There, thin as a reflection, is a young woman’s face.  Out of instinct he reaches out to grab her, to draw her to the surface before she drowns, but when his hand breaks the surface there’s no one there.

“Where are you?” he calls, heart thudding hard against his ribs.

“I am in the water,” she says again, “and I am the water.  I am the Lady of the Lake.”  As the water slowly stills, her face comes back into focus, and Arthur stares, trying to make sense of it.  

“The Lady of the Lake,” he repeats skeptically.  

The Lady smiles, a knowing, amused look that puts him in mind of Guinevere.  “You may call me Freya.”

Arthur frowns, reaches out as if to touch the water again, then pulls his hand back.  “You seem familiar, Freya.  But I’m quite certain I’ve never spoken to a lake spirit before.”

Her smile widens.  “We did meet once, when I was alive, in Camelot.  Merlin was very kind to me, and now for his sake I come to you.”

“Merlin,” he murmurs, and looks out into the mist as though to see the other shore, then looks back up at the hill, the tower.  “This is Avalon.  I’m dead, then.”

A hand, pale and wet, rises up out of the water and gently covers his own on the boat’s edge.  Her skin is cold, and Arthur fights down the urge to pull away.  “Not quite dead,” she says.  “You cannot yet return to the land of the living, but one day, when you and the world are both ready, you will.”

“Ready for what?” Arthur asks, bewildered.  Freya doesn’t answer, just pulls her hand back under the surface.

“Until that time, you must stay here, on Avalon.  An emissary from the Sidhe healed your wound when you arrived; you have their permission to bide your time.”

“So this place...it really is the other world.  Have I crossed the Veil, as Lancelot did?”  Then a thought occurs to him, and he searches the empty landscape of the hill again.  “Is he...is everyone here?  Everyone who has passed on?”

Freya’s reflection ripples as Arthur’s movements jostle the boat.  “Avalon _is_ the Veil.”

“Then where is the giant bloody hole in the air?  The creepy old hag?”  Arthur scowls.  “I don’t understand.”

A hint of frustration seeps into the Lady’s otherwise soothing voice.  “The ‘giant bloody hole’ was unnatural, a tear, like a hole in your cloak.  Better, a crack in a window pane.  The barrier is always there, but the hole lets you see it, glimpse what’s on the other side.”

Arthur’s scowl deepens.  “So now you’re telling me this island is a window pane.”

“You haven’t a poetic bone in your body, have you?” Freya mutters.  “All right.  Try this.  Think of Avalon as a port.  You came to it from the living world, as all people do.  Everyone else, they move on from here to the next world, most never to return.  You, Arthur Pendragon, must abide here at port until you are needed in the world of the living again.  Does that metaphor suit you?”

Chagrined, and beginning to understand, Arthur nods.  “I...I think so.  Thank you.”

“Then you’re out of my hands!” Freya chirps, grinning.  “There are others here who can tell you more, if you’ve a mind to get out of this boat and go find them.”  Then the surface of the water ripples again, and her face fades from view.

“Wait!  My Lady, wait, I have one more question!”  Arthur leans over the side, tipping the skiff precariously.  Freya’s mouth appears first, twisted in annoyance, and then the rest of her face follows.

“Yes?”

“If you...are the lake,” he asks haltingly, “can you see the other shore?  The living side?”

“I can,” she answers.

Arthur closes his eyes for a moment.  “Merlin.  Is he...is he still there?  Is he all right?  He’s hopelessly sensitive, you know, a great girl’s petticoat, he’ll be…”  He clears his throat around the lump forming in it.  “Well, I just died in his arms.”

Freya’s expression softens instantly, and she gives him a small, sad smile.  “Merlin has known much loss, and this is perhaps the greatest.  But he’ll be looked after, I promise you that.”

Arthur just breathes for a moment, taking this in, then nods.  “All right.  Thank you.”

The Lady nods in return, then dissolves like salt into the lake.

Arthur shifts himself to the bow of the boat and climbs out onto the muddy shore.


	2. Sir Percival and the Dragon

The autumn ground is frigid, too packed and hard to dig up quickly even if he had a shovel, and time is of the essence.  Instead, Percival does what he can; cuts Gwaine’s hands down from where they’re lashed, swaddles the body tightly in his red cloak.  He covers the face last, pressing a kiss to the chilled forehead, and hefts the bundle into the cradle of a tree, above the heads of carrion feeders.  He’ll come back, when he has time to grieve his brother-in-arms, bring him home to Camelot for a hero’s pyre.  Then he retrieves his sword, finds the horses lipping at the meager foliage where they were tied, and points Gwaine’s back toward the citadel with a slap on its rump to set it running.  He mounts his own, though he’s losing the light, and sets off westward to Avalon.

Morgana is making no effort to cover her trail, but it’s still difficult to follow in the dark, the hard earth only barely disturbed by her horse’s swift feet.  Percival makes slow progress through the night, and in the dim hours just before sunrise he sees other tracks, two horses together, shallow bootprints where their riders stopped to rest.  Dread and relief grip him suddenly and in equal measure.  He’s been following the right trail--but so has Morgana.  

He finds her body in a sheltered copse on the edge of a clearing; the rising sun is just high enough now to filter through the trees, dappling the ground with weak light.  The sight is a shock, like a physical blow, and at first it enrages him--his own vengeance denied, Gwaine’s death in vain--but the rage passes quickly, turning cold and trickling down his spine and arms when he takes in the scene.  Scuffed earth, broken branches and crushed dead leaves show him a struggle, though brief.  An impression in the plants and moss at the side of a rock indicate a prone body, propped up, the surface dirt scraped away in places by the hard edges of armor.  He can’t imagine how Merlin managed to slay Morgana, but the evidence of her body is undeniable.  Percival identifies two sets of footprints leaving the copse, stumbling and slow, and follows on foot out into the clearing.

Here, in full morning sunlight, it’s easy to see the blood in the dewed grass, the outline where two bodies crushed it down, and if he can just catch them up quickly enough, he can relieve Merlin of some of his burden.  He’s flummoxed, though, when the trail does not continue; the rest of the clearing is a mess of trampled earth, as though a huge beast had stood there, and then simply disappeared.  He doesn’t have long to wonder what this means before the dragon itself, _of course, a dragon, why didn’t he think of that,_ comes gliding overhead with gusting wingbeats and drops heavily onto the ground as if it may never fly again.

Percival draws his sword and scrambles backwards, trips and lands hard on his backside.  It’s certainly not the most dignified or knightly moment of his life, but he brandishes his blade at the beast anyway, ready as always to die fighting.  The dragon, to his surprise, watches him for a moment and then coughs out a weary laugh.

“No need for that, Knight of Camelot,” it says, settling itself down like an old and achy dog.  “I’m too old to digest chainmail.”

“You can speak,” Percival says after a stunned moment, and scrambles to his feet, sword still held out.

The creature narrows its huge gold eyes at him.  “Thirteen languages,” it replies, “though most of them are now dead.  You aren’t very bright, young man, but it’s brawn I require.  You’ll do.”

Not sure whether to be insulted or terrified, Percival settles for scowling.  “I’ll not be doing anything at all for a dragon, unless it’s a sword in your gullet you require.”

“Such bravado.  Tell me, which one are you?  Sir Leon, perhaps, or Sir Gwaine?”  It tilts its head to the side, considering.  “But you are very large, as men go.  You must be Sir Percival.”

“How do you know my name?” Percival spits, flabbergasted, before realizing that perhaps he’d be better off not confirming his identity.  Too late for that; the dragon regards him with something like a smug smile.

“My master has spoken often and fondly of the Knights of the Round Table.”

“Your master,” Percival repeats, caught off guard.  

“My kin,” the creature says, studying him with a put-upon expression that reminds him uncomfortably of Gaius.  

“That old sorcerer?  He commanded Morgana’s dragon, at Camlann.”

The dragon hums.  “Perhaps you aren’t as dim as you appear.”  

Percival tightens his grip on his sword, but lets the insult slide.  “If he sides with Camelot, then you’d best let me pass--I seek the King, urgently, to aid him in any way I can.”

With a heavy sigh, the dragon shakes its enormous head.  “I’m sorry, Sir Percival,” it says quietly.  “You are too late; King Arthur is dead.”

The words are spoken with such sympathy and feeling, so at odds with the frightening size and countenance of the beast, that it takes Percival a long moment to understand the meaning of them.  When he does, they strike him like a blow; he stumbles back, dropping the point of his sword to the ground to keep himself upright.  He can hear his blood pounding in his ears.  “No.  That can’t be.”  He shakes himself to focus, looks at the dragon.  “How do you know?”  Instead of a denial, an accusation, his voice comes out choked.

“I know because I bore his body to the lake of Avalon not one hour ago,” the dragon replies gently.  “He is gone.”

Numb, Percival looks around the clearing again, now making sense of the disappearing trail.  “His servant, who was with him.  I must find him, he’ll be...he shouldn’t be alone.  He’s defenceless, there are still Saxons in the woods.”  He strides forward, coming dangerously close to the beast, and it shifts to block his path.

“No.  You must return to Camelot; it falls to you to bring this news to the Queen.”

“But Merlin--”

“Merlin is far from defenceless,” the dragon interrupts.  At this distance Percival can see all its scales, dull and waxy like a snake about to shed, and smell the leather-and-smoke scent of it.  For a moment, he wonders if this entire interaction isn’t something he’s just imagining.  Then the dragon stretches its head toward him, until he can feel its hot breath on his arms.  “He’ll be safe,” it murmurs.  “Let him grieve.  You have other tasks.”

Against all his better instincts, Percival closes his eyes.  If this dragon is going to eat him, or scorch him to embers, so be it, but he doesn’t think it will.  He thinks it will give him a moment to gather himself, to sort all this out, and happily, he’s correct.  When he opens them again, the beast is still waiting and watching him with an air of expectation.  “I’m not certain the Queen will believe the word of a dragon,” he says carefully.

It huffs.  “Gaius will believe it, and she will believe Gaius,” it rumbles.

“You know Gaius?”

“He and I are old acquaintances.  You may tell him your news comes from Kilgharrah, and that will be enough.”

Percival commits this to memory.  “That’s your name?”

“Yes, or as close to it as the average human may pronounce.  Now, if you’ve asked all of your questions, I require your assistance for one small matter before you set out.”

“So you said.  What sort of assistance might a knight give a dragon?”

The beast-- _Kilgharrah_ \--looks past Percival to the treeline.  “I trust you discovered the Lady Morgana’s body.”

Percival nods slowly, a thread of uneasiness slipping up his spine.  Surprisingly, he sees the feeling echoed in Kilgharrah’s expression.

“Merlin asked that I see she is properly buried,” he rumbles, distaste in his voice.  “But I am too large to retrieve her from the place where she fell.”

“A burial?  For _her_?”  Percival shakes his head, the uneasiness sparking into a slow burn of anger.  “Why would Merlin ask such a thing after all she’s done?”

“Because he has a kinder heart by far than you or I,” Kilgharrah replies sharply, though his own discomfort with the task is clear.  “He remembers her as an innocent and a friend, and carries guilt for her betrayal.  I would ease his burden in any way I can, whether or not I agree with the principle.”

Percival is very fond of Merlin, as all the knights are.  So, though there is much in this encounter that makes no sense at all, he finds himself trudging back into the copse and gathering Morgana’s body into his arms.  When he returns to the clearing with her, the dragon has dug a deep furrow in the earth with his claws.  It’s the work of a few minutes to lay the sorceress in the grave and cover it again; while Kilgharrah pats the earth down with a forefoot, Percival casts about the field for stones to make a cairn.

He works in silence at first, filling his arms with stones and bringing them back before the dragon to pile on the mound.  Kilgharrah just watches him, warming the air with slow, hot breaths, while Percival sorts out his thoughts.  Building the cairn stone by stone seems to help, fitting pieces together physically as he tries to fit things together mentally.

The picture he suspects they make is difficult to swallow, but a knight must seek the truth and be fair in his judgements.  If he’s to know how to proceed from here, what to tell the Queen when he returns, he can’t shy away.  

“Why do you do what Merlin asks?” he asks at last, bracing for the answer.  “How do you know him?”

“He is my kin,” the dragon says, in a voice heavy with meaning.

Percival’s heart kicks hard against his ribs.  “Our funny little Merlin,” he murmurs.  “All along.”

A tense silence falls, stretches, thickening between them.  Kilgharrah shifts subtly, lifting his head, and Percival knows intimidation when he sees it, though it doesn’t make it less frightening.

“I hope I will not come to regret this conversation, Sir Percival.”

“No,” Percival replies, setting the last stone atop the cairn.  “On my honor, you won’t.”


	3. The Port of Avalon Part II

Arthur shades his eyes against the sun to take in the landscape, which isn’t much more than a tall grassy hill.  At the summit an odd narrow structure juts up into the sky, possibly some kind of watchtower.  If there’s anyone inside observing him, they haven’t yet sounded the alarm.  It feels a bit awkward, to be in full armor and cape but without his sword (and really, after all the trouble Merlin went to getting him to pull that sword out of a rock,  _ why _ couldn’t the idiot leave it in Arthur’s hands like a proper send-off?), but there’s nothing for it.  Arthur pulls his boots out of the sucking mud of the shoreline, and sets off up the hill.

There’s a window high in the side of the tower, good height for a crossbow shot though it’s not an arrow slit.  As he crests the rise, another window closer to the tower’s base comes into view.  It has a match on the opposite side, and neither one has glass or shutters; whatever the tower is for, it’s not very well fortified.  

The windows are aligned such that Arthur can see straight through the tower, but the view of the sky and the hill on the other side is dim as dusk, with tiny blue flashes of light darting about like insects in summer.  He stops short, transfixed.  Out of the corners of his eyes he can see the bright blue sky of morning everywhere else around him.  It doesn’t make sense, not any sense at all; then a figure, all in black, strides past inside the tower and the evening scene vanishes.  His legs shudder into motion again, drawn toward that figure, that brief familiar glimpse.  As he draws closer, another figure passes across in the opposite direction.  This one is smaller and brighter in purple silk, but equally as familiar.  Back and forth, shrinking and growing and changing each time--but he knows every one of them.

Cautiously, he approaches the near window.  It’s low enough that he could climb in easily if he wished, and wide enough to fit him twice over.  The figure takes no notice of him at first and he watches her go to and fro, one minute wild-haired and wild-eyed, the next shining in delicate chainmail, the next small and solemn in a dark mourning dress.  It’s this version he reaches out to, leaning through the window to catch her pale hand and halt her progress.  “Morgana.”

She stops, turns to look up at him.  She is as he remembers her on the day she arrived in Camelot, freshly orphaned, angry and solitary.  She stares at him the way she did then, like she’s desperate for a friend, and would die before letting anyone know it.  “Arthur,” she murmurs, and she flickers like a flame through the forms of their years together.  When she speaks again she is as he saw her just hours before, and she wrenches her hand away.  “You’re supposed to be dead.  Even Emrys can’t heal a wound such as yours.”

“Yours too,” Arthur replies.  “I am dead, a bit.  We both are.”

Morgana covers her stomach with her hands, though the wound isn’t there anymore.  Arthur notices, suddenly, that her dress isn’t all black; it’s green underneath, a dark, deep woods green, with the black layered over it like a creeping mould.  

“Merlin,” she growls, and she flickers again--cloaked in red velvet and holding her head, where her skull was cracked years ago, then wearing green and grasping her throat as if she can’t breathe.  Then she’s in her nightdress and gold-embroidered robe, trembling, her eyes ringed with purple shadows.  “All along,” she murmurs.  “He hid himself.   _ Coward _ .”

Anger flashes through Arthur, both at Merlin and in his defence, but it fades just as quickly.  He reaches out again, takes both of Morgana’s pale hands in his.  “Yes.  I think...I don’t know everything that happened, not by a long shot.  I think maybe he could have helped you.  I think maybe I could have, too.  I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t bring back Mordred.  Sorry doesn’t bring back my  _ sister _ ,” she snarls in reply, and he squeezes her hands tight and shouts back.

“It doesn’t bring back Elyan, or Lancelot, or my mother!”  His voice cracks suspiciously, and swallows hard.  “Or  _ my _ sister, either.  Can’t we...Morgana, we’re  _ dead _ .  Can’t we let it all go?  It’s been so many years since you looked at me as a friend.  We’ve both been hurt, and hurt each other.”  Arthur closes his eyes, and loosens his grip on Morgana’s hands, letting their arms rest together on the cool stone of the window sill.  “I’m so tired of this battle.”

“Yes, of course, Arthur,” she replies.  He opens his eyes again to look at her and finds her...wilted, somehow, the steel of her frame giving way.  Her face is sunken and her hair droops lankly to frame it.  She looks utterly defeated, and she slowly withdraws her hands from his.  “Let’s stop because  _ you’re _ tired.”

Then she turns away from him, slowly crossing the tower.  When he leans in to watch, he can see a plain wooden door on the adjacent wall, and another directly across from it.  Morgana tugs listlessly on the door, which doesn’t open, then turns and crosses to the other, which seems stuck just as tight.  She turns again, describing the same cramped path he saw her on as he approached.  She flickers as she goes, younger and younger, until she’s a tiny girl, younger that he’d ever known her.

“Why don’t you climb out the window?” he asks, patting the sill.  “I’ll help you.”

“Can’t go that way,” she says, tugging at one of the doors with more vigor.

“Why not?  You climb trees, surely you can climb out a window.”

“That’s the  _ wrong way _ ,” she insists without even turning to look at him.  Instead, she scowls at the door, and kicks it for good measure.

“Let me try from the outside, then,” Arthur replies, and strides around the circumference of the tower.  There isn’t a door where there should be one; he paces back and forth a few times, perplexed, then continues around to the other side to peer in the window there.  Inside, he still sees the two doors, and little Morgana walking between them.  “This place doesn’t make any sense,” he mutters, and continues around.  At last he comes upon a door on the outside, and all it takes is the lightest push for it to swing open.  

“Really, Morgana, that wasn’t so--”  Arthur pulls up short, blinking at the dim interior.  The circular room is gone.  The windows are gone.  Most importantly,  _ Morgana _ is gone.  There’s only a cramped stone landing, and stairs spiraling up above his head.  “Morgana?” he calls, then races back outside.  The window he first approached is there when he rounds the curve of the tower again, and Morgana is inside, sitting with her back against the door Arthur  _ thought _ he just opened, arms around her knees.  She’s not small now, just haunted-looking.  “Morgana,” he sighs, relieved, and unclasps his unwieldy cape to drape it over the stone before hefting himself up and over the sill.

His boots touch down on grass, and he blinks dizzily, getting his bearings.  He is outside the other window; there’s his cape, lying across the opposite ledge.  “What the…”  He hops up and over again, trying to keep his eyes on the stone floor inside.  Instead, he lands once again on grass.  “This doesn’t make  _ sense! _ ” he shouts, and Morgana finally looks at him again, mouth pursed in annoyance.  

“I told you, that way doesn’t work.  You should learn to listen to your betters, brother dear.” 

“I don’t understand it,” Arthur continues, ignoring her barb.  “I’m going to try the door again.  Move away, I don’t want to hit you with it.”

“Oh, you won’t,” she mutters.  He scowls and makes for the outside door.  “Good luck!” he hears her call, and then he pushes the door open again and steps back into the circular stairwell.  When the door shuts behind him, there’s almost no light; just what filters down the stairs from the floor above.  Arthur huffs in frustration, then takes a deep, even breath and ascends the stairs.


	4. A Druid in Camelot

Her mother says no, Gonny may not go to the city to make her own way even though she’s nearly of age, so she visits Iseldir’s tent instead and makes her case directly to him.

“I  _ don’t _ want to be handfasted to Barri, and I haven’t enough magic to be of much use here, and I want to meet people and see things outside of this bloody forest for once in my life,” she tells him all in a breathless, angry rush.  Infuriatingly, Iseldir just smiles.

“I see,” he says, calm, and it takes a bit of the wind from her sails.

“I just...I feel like I need to go,” she adds, and it’s the truth--there’s a tugging in her chest and in her gut, a stirring in her meager magic, that urges her feet away from the encampment.  It’s easy enough to resist, but she just doesn’t  _ want  _ to.

“Feelings ought to be listened to,” Iseldir replies, and reaches into the sleeve of his robe.  “I have something for you.”

He pulls out a small pendant on a thin braided cord, and leans forward to hang it around her neck.

_ This is a time of great change in Camelot, he says in her mind.  Some prophecies have come to pass, and some still await fruition.  I sense you have a part in this, Ganieda.  Go with my blessing, and may the Goddess light your path. _

This is a bit more to take in than she was expecting when she’d stormed into the clan chief’s tent, so she just lifts the pendant up to get a better look; it’s the Goddess’ symbol, the triple moon, carved delicately into a smooth river rock no bigger than the pad of her thumb.  She tucks it down the neck of her shift, and it’s warm with magic against her skin.  “Thank you,” she says, pressing her hand against it over her clothes.  “Thank you so much.”

“Thank  _ you _ ,” he replies, and there’s some secret glinting in his eyes, a glimpse of what’s to come--but Gonny knows better than to ask.

Instead, she runs home to hug her mother and pack, and be on her way before she loses the daylight.

***

She hears about the battle on the road.  There seems to be a constant stream of soldiers and knights in Camelot red riding by, kicking up dust, and when groups meet each other she catches snippets of their conversations.  The battle against Morgana is won, but the Lady herself may still be at large; the Saxons she brought with her have mostly fled; the King still has not been found.  

Great change indeed.  Gonny wonders if Iseldir knew all of this when he sent her on her way, if he knows where King Arthur is and what’s become of him.  She’s never had much interest in prophecy.  Now it seems she ought to have paid closer attention.  Though magic is still illegal in Camelot, the King has been decent to the Druids in other ways; she’s inclined to like him, as kings go, and worries a little more every time a patrol passes by without him.

It takes her two days of walking to spy the huge white citadel of Camelot in the distance, and she hurries the rest of the way, the tugging inside her pulling just the slightest bit harder.

***

There are more people in the Lower Town than she’s ever seen in her life, all crammed in close together with their trades and wares and animals.  The clamor is so overwhelming that she almost turns around and runs right back to the cool, sun-dappled quiet of the forest and the peaceful slow pace of the encampment.  Instead, she touches her palm to her chest where the amulet hums, and presses onward.  The more time she spends amid the bustle, the more it begins to make sense; there’s a structure to it, the day to day essentials that are the same everywhere, but the recent battle has stirred the people up like a disturbed beehive.

The feeling changes as she travels further into the shadow of the castle.  A weight of grief rests on the shoulders of all the servants and soldiers and knights who hurry past, not talking to each other except in quiet murmurs.  In the center of the courtyard, what can only be a huge funeral pyre is slowly taking shape.  These are people who knew the dead, people who saw and served and loved the King.  Somewhere in the castle is the Queen, whose husband may not return.  It’s sobering.  Gonny’s dreams of city life won’t be so easily disrupted, but she tries to be compassionate when she asks a guard for directions to the kitchens, and asks the Cook if there might be a position for an able-bodied young woman there.  

Luck and the Goddess are on her side.  The kitchen is shorthanded, and there are injured knights in rooms all over the castle and a makeshift hospital filled with foot soldiers.  They all need feeding, and runners to bring meals to those who can’t walk.  Ganieda is given a narrow cot in the servants’ quarters and a small hot meal of her own before she’s put to work carrying endless rounds of suppers.  She gets lost at least a dozen times, but by the time she drops exhausted onto her cot she’s mostly learned the lay of the land.

The Goddess amulet radiates warmth where it’s tucked between her breasts, a tiny coal of heat and home comfort as she closes her eyes and falls headlong into sleep.

***

The next day she’s peering out a window down into the courtyard to get her bearings when a truly enormous knight with tree-trunk arms rides in with a red-wrapped body draped over his saddle.  A prickle of dread shivers through her chest and down up the back of her neck like a warning; she leans her loaded tray on the windowsill to keep from dropping it.  Down in the courtyard, a tall knight with scruffy curls hurdles down the steps to meet the rider; they clasp forearms for a long, stiff moment.  She can’t see from here if they’re speaking, but something passes between them.  The curly-haired knight lays a hand, very lightly, on the wrapped body, and his shoulders sink for just a moment.  Then he straightens, helps the giant knight down from his horse, and together they bear the body across the courtyard to lay it with the many others that await the funeral pyre.

_ If it was the King, _ she thinks,  _ they wouldn’t lay him there.  They’d bring the body inside. _  Still, the image they make, stoic and stiff amidst the bodies of the dead, seems oddly private despite the bustle of other people all through the courtyard.  Ganieda hefts her tray again and turns away from the window, making her way to the temporary hospital with food already going cold.

She isn’t surprised to find the old physician moving about through the makeshift cots, nor the servants helping him who gather around to relieve her of the plates she’s brought.  She is rather surprised to see a beautiful woman in velvet who must be the Queen, making rounds and speaking to people, checking bandages, generally dirtying her hands.  Just a minute of watching her makes clear that she’s willing to take on any task that needs doing, but there’s a tension in her face that makes Gonny think she’s trying desperately to keep busy.

Then the door opens to admit the two knights from the courtyard.  “Your Majesty,” says the curly-haired one, but the Queen is already hurrying across the room toward him.  Their gazes are locked, but Gonny can’t read what’s in their expressions; it seems the physician can, though, because he hurries after them as they all stride out of the room.

The other servants just keep going about their tasks, emptying Gonny’s tray and bringing the food around to those who are awake to eat it.  She’s meant to go straight back to the kitchens for another load, but that creeping dread has returned; she lingers in the hallway for a moment, listening.  There are murmuring voices from a room nearby, too soft to discern through the door, then a woman’s anguished cry.  It’s a sound Gonny knows; for a moment, she’s eight years old and clinging to her mother’s skirts, and her father is gone.

She swallows hard, blinking away the memory.  With a furtive glance around the empty hallway, she pulls the amulet from inside her dress and grips it in her palm.  On a whisper, she casts the only spell she’s ever really mastered: a small blessing meant to bring comfort and ease pain, one she cast over her mother many times.  This time, it throbs through her with unexpected power, and the amulet in her hand grows hotter.  She drops it, startled, and loses her grip on the empty food tray; it clatters to the floor.

The door opens before she can get her wits about her, and the old physician looks out.  His eyes catch on her, and his gaze is intense, pinning her in place.   _ I couldn’t even manage a full day,  _ Gonny thinks hysterically as the physician stares at her.  She hopes, for a moment, that she might only have been caught eavesdropping; then he sees amulet around her neck, and he looks at her again with an eyebrow raised so high it might leap off his face.

“Do you know where my quarters are?” he asks.

Gonny closes her eyes, takes a slow breath, then opens them again and nods.  “Yes, sir.”

“There’s vervain in the cupboard near the fireplace; make a pot of tea with it and bring it here, quick as you can.”  Then he shoots another glance at the amulet.  “And hide that away, girl, before anyone else sees it.”  

She blinks at him, then quickly shoves the amulet into the neck of her shift.  “Yes sir,” she chokes out, and his face softens.

“It’s all right.  Now go on, I need that tea right away.”

“Yes sir!”

She finds her way to the physician’s chambers in a daze.  The vervain is where he’d said it would be, and there’s a fire still going in the hearth, so she fills a kettle from the water bucket and hangs it over the flames to boil.  Then she collapses, legless, onto a wooden bench.  She’s trembling too much to do anything but examine the room, taking in the plants and drying herbs all around, the mess of books and papers and glass equipment on every surface.

There’s no visible evidence that the physician knows anything about magic, or practices it, but then there wouldn’t be--surely, if any such evidence exists, it’s hidden away.  The look he gave her when he saw her in the hallway, though... _ he might have felt the blessing.  Which would mean he has magic of his own.  The Court Physician! _  She wishes she had any skill at scrying, that she could ask Iseldir’s advice or her mother’s.  The thought of them, of her tent-home in their quiet camp, makes her suddenly and terribly homesick.  

When the tea is brewed and ready she loads it on her kitchen tray with four mismatched cups.  There’s a cloth-covered dish on the table by the hearth, and when she lifts the corner of the cloth, a lovely honey smell wafts out from the cake underneath.  _ That’ll do _ , she thinks, and sets the cake on the tray as well.

She can’t hurry back as quickly as she’d like with the laden tray, but soon enough she’s at the closed door again, hearing the quiet murmur of voices inside.  The door opens right away when she taps on it, and the physician steps back to let her in.

It’s a small receiving room, with chairs scattered around and an imposing desk at the far end; one of the chairs holds the Queen, her hands clasped in her lap so tight her knuckles whiten.  The two knights are standing near her.  All of them look weary, and red about the eyes; Gonny lowers her gaze brings the tray across the room to set it on the desk.

There’s a heavy silence in the room as she fills the four cups with tea, and brings one to the Queen, bending to one knee to offer it.  “Your Majesty.”  Slowly, almost creakily, the Queen unfolds her hands and wraps them one after the other around the cup.  “I brought a cake as well, Your Majesty,” Gonny says softly.  “My mother says sweet is good for a shock.”

The Queen looks up then.  She’s stunning, up close, beautiful but also present, everything in her heart up at the surface of her eyes.  Gonny knows she should probably look down or away, but she’s caught in that gaze, feeling as though the Queen is looking straight into her but seeing someone else.  “Thank you,” the Queen says, and her voice is rough and soft.  “That’s very kind.”  Then she lifts the tea to her mouth to drink, and the moment is broken; Gonny rises and slips quietly out of the room.  

Later that day Gonny will stand on tiptoe with the other servants crowding the throne room doors.  She will peer in at the Queen sitting straight-backed on the throne as the assembled knights pledge to their new sovereign, and she will shout for the Queen’s long life, and she will wonder if this solemn-eyed woman, so steady and powerful in her grief, will be the one to let magic back into the land.

When Gonny has been running and fetching and serving from the kitchens to the hall to the royal chambers for two weeks, and the rumor reaches her that the Queen needs a maidservant, she goes at once to the Steward and puts forth her name for the job.


	5. The Last Dragon

She has no voice to call to him, so she has to search him out.  Kilgharrah always feels like a mountain in her mind, like huge sun-heated stones, implacable but warm.  Her sense of him is fading, but not because she’s headed in the wrong direction.  

She flies at night, when the Saxons are asleep at their campfires and the men of Camelot have returned to the citadel.  Then she discovers that when she travels over thick forest, or when the sky is washed white with clouds, the humans don’t notice her; she makes better time after that.  She finally finds him just a day’s flight north of Camelot, collapsed on a wooded hillock in the midst of a fort.  She cannot smell or see any humans, but the structures and the odd pool of water in the center are their work; it seems a poor place for a dragon to meet his death.

“There have been no humans on this hill for decades,” Kilgharrah rumbles without opening his eyes.  “I was hatched beneath this hill, far longer ago than that.”  His voice is more breath than sound.

Aithusa trills her worry and her loss, and lands close by Kilgharrah’s side to breathe healing magic onto him.  The old dragon snorts and slaps her feebly with a wing.  “Don’t,” he grumbles, stern.  “Instead, when my spirit is gone, burn this body to ash.  Let my magic return to the earth.”

Chastened and keening softly with sorrow, Aithusa curls up against the fading warmth of Kilgharrah’s body, pressed in under his wing to feel his breaths as they slow.  They lay there as the sun sets in a fiery burst of color, and long into the chill of night, silent.  Then, slowly, the Great Dragon stirs.

“You are...the last,” he rasps, voice quiet and calm.  “Obey your lord...look after him.”  Aithusa rubs her cheek against his, dwarfed by his size, and within minutes his huge body goes slack.  His last breath, no smoke or magic in it at all, puffs out in a barely visible cloud in the night air.  But when, Aithusa wonders, does the spirit leave?  She waits until sunrise, snugged up along his side, to be sure.  Then, as the day breaks, she paces away and summons her hottest fire and her brightest magic.  She turns both on the body, scorching the shape of it into the earth around the human-made pool, forcing the Great Dragon’s magic into the ground and sealing it there like cauterizing a wound.  The pool boils; the fort, the hill, the country all around throbs with power, waking up the sleepy morning world for miles.  

Knowing that curious humans will soon come to investigate, Aithusa bends her head to the blackened earth in a last farewell before taking to the air.  She turns to the south, toward the tug in her chest she has been ignoring.  His power and his grief calls to hers, and she relents and follows it toward her dragonlord.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This location was originally going to feature more in the story--it's based on a real place called [Dinas Emrys](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinas_Emrys), where Vortigern's fortress supposedly stood and where the red and white dragons of Arthurian legend battled.


	6. The Sorcerer Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: there is a little bit of suicidal ideation in this chapter.

Mist, thick and billious, rises up around the island and its silent tower to obscure the boat from sight.  Merlin stands on the lakeshore for hours anyway, until his legs give out.  Then he sits even longer, for days, tumbled into a heap of angles.  His limbs grow stiff and cramp from lack of movement, but physical pain becomes a drop in the ocean of this grief; slowly, brittle and aching, he curls himself around the sucking vacuum in his chest and rests his cheek in the cold mud of the shoreline.  

Days become weeks without food or water or any clear sense of the passage of time; the sun rises and sets, but Merlin does not change, does not even move.  He understands, dimly, that the magic of the Crystal Cave, the magic in himself, has wrought this stasis.  His hair never grows, nor his beard, nor even his fingernails; he starves, but doesn’t waste away.  

It’s a disappointment--he would like to disappear, to disintegrate and be washed into the lake by the water’s gentle lapping.  He would like his particles to float away, following Arthur into the mist.  He has sent too many bodies across the water, set too many pyres alight, and wonders if he could summon the strength now to light his own.

This is how Aithusa finds him.

He is first aware of her as a radiating warmth at his back, and then as a quietly nudging presence in his mind.  Not words, but feelings; curiosity and sadness and longing.   _ Aithusa, _ he thinks to her, and she comes closer, curling her fire-warmed body around his.  He gets more feelings in reply, belonging, ownership.  Morgana is dead, Kilgharrah is gone, and Merlin is her only kin now.  

With the dragon’s skin and scales warming him, her deformed tail flopped over Merlin’s curled up legs and her sad-eyed face set resting in the mud beside his own, he slowly begins to come back to awareness of the world.  The trees around the lake are bare and frosted with ice; as he shifts his stiff limbs, he finds that he’s covered in a thin layer of frost as well.  It was autumn when he was last aware.  Now there’s a sharpness in the air that tells him winter is well underway, and he’s been deep in his own mind for much too long.  He struggles upright, muscles screaming in protest, and Aithusa props him up with her shoulder.  He receives curiosity from her again, a question.  “Time to go,” he replies with a voice cracked and hoarse; the words freeze his throat like a breath of ice.  

Merlin manages to gain his feet, leaning into Aithusa’s flank, and takes a last long look toward the island before resolutely turning away.  He expects it to be painful, turning his back on that view, but it’s more that he’s tired; he feels worn and delicate as a threadbare shirt.  It’s almost a relief to turn his eyes to the quiet woods.

The practicalities of travel prove more difficult; even with the dragon’s support at his side, when Merlin tries to walk his legs wobble and he flops to the ground.  Aithusa snorts worriedly at him, shoving her big head underneath him until he gives in and climbs with some effort onto her back.  He strokes down the length of her twisted spine in thanks, and thinks images at her, mountains and fields and his mother baking bread.  The dragon rumbles understanding, and sets off through the bare trees.  Merlin does not look back.

***

There is no idle time in a poor village such as Ealdor, even in the dead of winter.  There are sheaves of wool to be spun and baskets to be woven, berries and mushrooms and winter herbs to gather, endless kindling to collect.  Merlin was always hopeless at spinning and weaving, but the rest he can do as they travel.  Aithusa makes no complaints about carrying an increasing load of wood once Merlin is able to walk unaided, and Merlin sacrifices his jacket to make a bag for forage.  It’s not a great sacrifice; the cold feels distant, as if it can’t quite touch him, but at the same time it has slipped right through the cracks in him and numbed him down to the core.  

As they draw closer to Ealdor, Merlin tries to turn his mind to the problem of the dragon.  She can’t follow him into the village--there would be panic, and she could be hurt.  Merlin can’t carry the load of wood himself, though, and to transport it by magic would also cause panic.  He can’t rouse himself to care on his own behalf, but he won’t bring a witch hunt to his mother’s door.

Aithusa must sense his intention to leave her and their wood stockpile in the forest, because she presses close to him, almost knocking him over in her desire to stay near.  Merlin rubs at the itchy spot below the joint of her wing.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, soothingly, and she gives an unhappy trill.  Then Merlin’s mind is filled with pictures; an enormous bird, a horse, other creatures he has no name for, each as blindingly white as Aithusa’s hide.  He meets her hopeful gaze, frowning.  “That’s difficult magic, changing you into something else,” he answers.  He could do it--as soon as he considers the question, he knows--but the bottomless well of power in him has gone as cold as the air, stiff and unsupple.  

Aithusa will not be deterred.  She huffs a frustrated, smoky breath, nudges him hard with her snout, and nudges equally hard at his mind with her demand.

“All right,” he replies, holding up his hands in surrender.  “All right.  I’ll try.”

He considers the problem--something large would be easier to accomplish, something ordinary would be easier to explain--and settles on a mule.  He intends to make her an unassuming brown, but as his magic sluggishly flows outward to mold her to this image, Aithusa screws up her face and pushes at it until she is a white mule instead.  Merlin sighs, shaking his head, but lets it be.  He’s spent the better part of a decade arguing with a vain, stubborn prat, he doesn’t need to continue with vain, stubborn dragon.

The thought that he’ll never argue with his prat again brings him woozily to his knees, and he decides it’s as good a place as any to rest for the night.

***

They walk into Ealdor just past midday, Merlin leading and Aithusa swaying amiably behind with her load of wood.  Hunith must see them coming from the window, because she bursts from the house with a shout of Merlin’s name and runs up the lane to wrap him tightly in her arms.  

“You’re safe,” she breathes, squeezing him and crushing his bag of food between them, and he feels a stab of guilt.  Of course, even Ealdor would have gotten the news by now.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.  “I couldn’t…”

Hunith shakes her head and presses a fierce kiss to his temple.  “It’s all right.  Come inside, you need warming and feeding up.”

In spite of her words, she makes no move to let him go; Merlin pats her back gently.  “Let me unload the wood first,” he says.

Hunith kisses his cheek twice in rapid succession, then releases him.  She asks no questions as they unburden Aithusa and fetch her hay and a warm blanket.  Merlin is pathetically grateful.  He can’t imagine explaining anything to her right now, can’t allow himself to think about anything but the next moment; settling Aithusa in the yard, handing his mother the foraging bag, kicking the muck from his boots before he steps into the house, sitting at the table while Hunith bustles about.  When she places a mug of heated ale and a plate of bread and smoked meat in front of him, he consumes it without tasting it.  

Finally she spills the food he’d collected out onto the table to take stock; some of the medlar fruits were squashed and the mushrooms broken to pieces when she hugged him, and a forest of scents rises up from the broken leaves of ground elder and chickweed.  He helps her sort what’s salvageable, what should be cooked or preserved immediately from things that could wait, and soon is cutting rose hips and scraping out their hairy seeds.  Rose hips are small and fiddly, and preparing them is a task he often takes over to spare Gaius’ joints; it’s habit to take the job on for his mother as well.  Tedious work is soothing right now, familiar, and he falls into a rhythm.  Once they’re cleaned, he’ll boil them and strain out the juice for syrup.  His mother should have a stock of that, with winter settled in around them; the cold brings on aches and pains and illness.

“Arthur hates rose hip syrup,” Merlin tells Hunith with something resembling a smile.  “Last winter he came down with this awful chest cold, and he wouldn’t take any.  Gwen had to sit on him so I could pour it down his throat.”  Arthur had protested mightily, but he’d been laid low by the illness; eventually he gave in, then fell asleep exhausted from his efforts.  Gwen retired to her private chamber to keep from catching ill herself, and Merlin sat by Arthur’s bed and bathed his face and neck with cool water.  The red flush of fever rode high on his cheekbones, but otherwise he was pale and sheened with sweat, and woke himself often with bouts of wet coughing.  It was a long week of Arthur’s obstinate griping, cranky insults and pitiful moans, but when they were alone in the deepest part of the night, he allowed Merlin to rub peppermint oil across his chest to help him breathe.  “He’s a big baby when he’s ill.”

“Merlin,” Hunith says, taking the paring knife from his hand and setting it aside.  He looks up at her, and the quiet pain in her face brings home what he’s said.

“He...he  _ was _ a big baby when…” The words shake something loose inside him, and he starts to tremble.  “He’s gone.  Mother…”  She squeezes his hands tightly in her own.

“I know, love.”  

“Arthur’s dead,” he wheezes out, a keening sound.  He’s safe and warm and full here, he left Arthur behind cold and dead and alone and he  _ hates _ himself for it, so he shoves his face into his mother’s stomach and sobs.  Pain breaks over him like waves and he is helpless against it; the sobs grow to a wail so involuntary his mouth stretches open until the corners sting just to fit around the sound, and his fingers clench and tear at the rough wool of Hunith’s dress.  Everything is wrong wrong  _ wrong _ , and he wonders if he could die this way instead, scorched by a lightning strike of sorrow.

Minutes or years later, the storm inside him slows.  He can feel fingers stroking through his hair, hears a soothing murmur above him.  His hands are cramped closed, his throat and lungs scraped raw, his eyes swollen and aching.  Aithusa is a warm touch in his mind, and his mother is warm touches on his neck and his face, and at some point he feels himself tipped sideways into a bed.  He sleeps hard and dreams of Arthur, standing sunlit and alone on an empty shore.


	7. The Port of Avalon Part III & IV

The stairs seem to twist around forever, but Arthur can’t tell if it’s the tower or his sense of time that isn’t quite right.  Possibly, it’s both.  He’s about to give up and turn back when a woman’s voice stops him.

“So you’re dead too, then.  That makes me feel a bit better.”

He twists toward the sound and finds himself on a landing that wasn’t there before, facing a door with a peephole and two eyes watching him through it.  “Glad to be of service,” he says hesitantly, testing out newly-appeared floor with his feet.

“You’re supposed to come in,” the voice reprimands, and the eyes at the peephole narrow.  “What a fool you are.”

“I haven’t exactly had an orientation,” Arthur gripes, and pushes open the door.  Kara, Mordred’s Druid girlfriend who Arthur had hanged, is standing in the middle of the Darkling Woods on the other side.

He freezes in the doorway a moment, utterly disoriented.  One hand is on the heavy wood of the door, one foot across the threshold sinking into the springy undergrowth of the forest, and Kara is sneering at him from between the trees.

His arm twitches toward his sword before he remembers that he isn’t carrying a sword, and also that he’s in some kind of bizarre afterlife so it almost doesn’t matter.  Kara’s eyes follow the motion.  “As I said, a fool.”  Then her eyes sweep downward to the bloody hole in his mail, and her smile widens.  “At least Mordred achieved what I could not.”

Now Arthur has an urge to cover the hole, even though the wound isn’t there anymore, but he resists and steps fully into the forest, letting the door swing shut behind him.  “I gave as good as I got,” he replies.

“Yes,” Kara agrees, and her expression hardens.  “I was watching.”

“Can all dead people watch the living, then?”   _ And isn’t that a horrifying thought? _

Her gaze sharpens, pinning him in place like one of Gaius’ specimens.  “You’ll find out soon enough.  There are rules here.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow at her.  “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what they are.”

“I’d rather hang again.”  She touches her throat, and under her fingers a deep purple bruise appears where the rope snapped tight; when she lowers her hand it’s vanished.

“I didn’t want to hang you,” he says, and even as he says it he can hear how petulant he sounds.  “I gave you a chance to repent.”

She tilts her head up, cool.  “Because of Mordred.  Not because you knew you were wrong.”

Arthur snaps his mouth shut around a denial, then huffs. “You should go downstairs and talk to Morgana,” he grouses.  “My afterlife is a series of infuriating women.”

Kara sucks in a breath.  “Morgana’s dead?” she asks, and a new voice asks with her.  They both turn to look, and another door has opened in what seems to be thin air, admitting a stout cloaked woman all in gray-blue with a no-nonsense sort of look about her eyes.

“...Yes,” Arthur replies, studying the woman.  “Where did that door come from?”

Kara makes a disgusted sound and paces away, but the new arrival crosses straight to Arthur and takes both of his hands in hers.  “You’re here,” she says sadly.  “Then the prophecy was fulfilled, after all.  Emrys could not save you.”

“Emrys?”

“The great sorcerer.  I brought him a warning of what was to come.”

“You mean Merlin?” Arthur asks, hesitant.  “He’s supposed to be a pretty great sorcerer, though I find that hard to believe.  And he did say something about trying to defy a prophecy.”

The woman peers at him, and squeezes his hands.  It’s oddly intimate, to be so closely examined by a stranger, but it’s not unpleasant; she, at least, doesn’t seem pleased he’s dead.  “He told you what he is, then.”

“Seems I was the last to know,” Arthur replies.

“Because he knew you’d kill him for it,” Kara says conversationally, and it stings Arthur like a blade.  “Emrys is no great savior of magic.  He’s just a traitor, and a fool.”

“Magic will return,” says the woman in blue, an almost zealous gleam in her expression.  She drops Arthur’s hands and turns to Kara.  “It was foretold.”

“Then what about the Golden Age?  The Once and Future King?  I’ve heard the prophecies too,” Kara shoots back.  “The king is  _ here _ , and magic is still punishable by death.”

“Emrys will bring magic back to Camelot--”

“Emrys will  _ die _ if he returns to Camelot!”

“ _ No one’s going to kill Merlin! _ ” Arthur shouts, and both women fall silent, staring at him.  “Guinevere would never--we talked about the ban, many times, about--” he falters under the sudden scrutiny.  “Guinevere doesn’t have the same...problems, with magic, that I do.  Did.  Merlin will be safe in Camelot.”

The woman in blue grins, suddenly and brilliantly.  “Then there is hope.”

Kara’s face is blank as a stone, but her hands are clenching.  She whirls, and halfway into a tree a door suddenly exists where there was none before.  It’s only there long enough for her to wrench it open and move through; between the click as it closes and the next heartbeat, it vanishes again.  “This place is going to drive me mad,” Arthur mutters, and the woman in blue chuckles.

“You’ll adjust, I daresay.”  Then she sinks to one knee, looking up at him, as though she’s only now judged him worthy of the gesture.  “Thank you,” she says solemnly, and Arthur shakes his head.

“For what?  Apparently I haven’t done what I was supposed to.”

The woman grins again.  “Thank you for marrying well, My Lord.”

That startles a laugh out of him.  “Yes, well...I did do that.  Eventually.”  He draws the woman back to her feet.  She pats his hand, a grandmotherly gesture incongruous with the steel spine of her, and gestures behind him.

“That door is for you,” she says.

Arthur turns; it’s a different door to the one he came through, bigger and rather more imposing.  “How do you know?”

She just smiles, and shepherds him forward with a hand on his back.  “Go on then, Arthur.  There’s much yet for you to learn, I’m sure.”

“Will you be here, if I come back?” he says, suddenly unwilling to leave this pleasant encounter and chance more uncomfortable ones, but she shakes her head.

“I have my own journey to complete.  But when you are with Emrys again, will you give him a message from me?”

Arthur pauses, gripping the handle of the door.  “I’ll see him again?”

“That, too, has been foretold,” she says with a small smile.

Arthur swallows hard around the sudden tightness in his throat.  “And the message?”

“Tell him that Finna sends her thanks--and that after meeting the Once and Future King, she understands his faith.”

Then she turns, walks through her own door in the air, and disappears.


	8. Queen Guinevere Lifts the Ban

“The Queen has been to see you a number of times this week,” Leon says to Gaius, conversationally.  Gaius pauses with his cup halfway to his mouth, giving Leon the eyebrow.  

“Yes,” he drawls in answer, his mouth going stern at the corners.  They’re seated across from each other at the worn old table in the physician’s quarters, sharing a quiet meal.  Gaius has cooked two suppers every night in the time Merlin’s been gone; Leon and Percival take it in turns, or sometimes go together, to keep Gaius company and keep the food from going to waste.  

Now, Leon shakes his head a little, chastised.  “I don’t mean to pry into the Queen’s private business.”

“Just as well,” Gaius replies mildly.  “As a physician and royal advisor, it would be a grave breach of trust for me to repeat any discussion Guinevere wishes to have with me.”

“Of course,” Leon agrees.  “I only wish...well, she’s seemed pensive recently.”

Gaius frowns a bit at that.  “She’s grieving, and is bearing the weight of rule alone.  It’s only natural that she isn’t quite her buoyant self.”

“It seems like more than that to me,” Leon says, swirling his ale in his cup.  “Like she’s keeping too much to herself.”  When Gaius raises a questioning eyebrow, Leon sighs.  “We grew up together, I know what she’s like when she’s hiding something.  She has the same look about her she had when her mother started to train her for a lady’s service, but at night she snuck out to practice at the forge.  I just wish I knew how I might help her.  Any way I could support her.” 

Gaius softens and returns to his meal.  “More than taking on responsibility for the knights, the patrols, and Camelot’s entire army?”

“I was doing much of that for Arthur, anyway,” Leon argues.  “That’s what the First Knight is for.”

“True.”  Gaius mops up a bit of sauce with his bread and chews it ponderously.  “You’re a good boy, Leon, and the Queen trusts you.  She’ll tell you when she needs you.”  

Leon feels the tips of his ears heat, going red with pleasure and embarrassment in equal parts at being called a boy, as though he’s come to Gaius to ask whether catching frogs on a full moon will give him warts.  Still, sensing that this topic is at an end, Leon just nods and goes back to his dinner.  They talk lightly about other things for a while; Leon’s plans to send messengers out with a call for new knight candidates among the common people, Gaius’ latest studies of the medical writings of Galen, the kitten from the stables Percival’s been sneaking treats to that now won’t stop following him around.  They don’t speak about the Queen again.

That doesn’t stop Leon from worrying, though.  He observes her closely whenever he has the chance, which is really quite often, but discovers nothing outwardly amiss; aside from the hours she spends with Gaius, most of her time is devoted to ruling, broken up by conspiratorial whispers with her maid, Ganieda.  “If there’s anything you need,” he tells her after every report he gives, “anything at all, just tell me.”  Gwen just smiles warmly and presses his hand or squeezes his shoulder and thanks him in reply.  

At last, when Leon is beginning to despair that his Queen trusts him not at all, he’s summoned to her chambers for supper.  It’s unusual enough to make him suspicious; Gwen generally eats in the Hall with wildly varying combinations of company, using the time for informal audiences with everyone from visiting nobles to castle staff.  She never has dinner alone anymore, and only forgoes the Hall if she desires an excuse for a smaller, more private meeting. 

He arrives to find Percival, Gaius, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, gripping an enormous book, already present.  Ganieda closes the door behind him and, at a glance from Gwen, locks it.  The Queen gestures him to an empty chair across from Percival, and he takes it.  “My Lady.”

She acknowledges the courtesy with a small smile--she’s never been entirely comfortable with formality between them--then folds her hands together on the table, all business.  “I’ve asked the four of you here to discuss a very delicate matter, and before we begin, I must ask that nothing said tonight leaves this room until the timing is right.”

There are nods of assent around the table, and a slightly offended “of course, Your Majesty,” from Geoffrey.  

The corner of Gwen’s mouth twitches at this, but she remains solemn.  “Lord Monmouth, have you found the information I requested?”

“I have, My Lady.”

“Then, if you would be so kind as to tell us what laws governed the use of magic, before King Uther’s ban.”

All of the hair on the back of Leon’s neck rises, and he sees Percival’s brows go up in surprise.  Gaius, on the other hand, looks completely composed--and rather suddenly, Leon suspects he knows what the physician and the Queen have been so often and so secretively discussing.  

Geoffrey clears his throat and opens his book.  “There were very few laws directly regarding the use of magic,” he explains.  “Crimes carried the same sentences they do today, whether they were committed by magical means or mundane.  The only specifically magical crime mentioned is exerting influence, physical or mental, over another person without their consent.   This carried a sentence of banishment.”

Gwen nods.  “And to the best of your recollection, did that system suffice to keep peace and order in Camelot?”

For a long moment Geoffrey considers the question, eyes drifting to the side as though looking back into his memories.  “Yes, My Lady,” he finally replies.  I believe so.”

“Gaius?” she says, turning to him, and he nods.  

“Yes.  Magic and the Old Religion once thrived in Camelot under the old laws, and the kingdom thrived along with them.”

“That is all the reason I need,” Guinevere replies, and Leon hears the iron core of intention at the center of her voice, a weathervane turning to point steadily in the direction of the wind.  “Tomorrow morning I will call the full Council, and proclaim the ban on magic lifted and a return to the laws as they were when it was placed.  As my advisors,” she says, looking around the table with a smile tucked at the corner of her mouth, “as my friends, if you have anything to say or ask on the matter, tonight is your opportunity.”

Leon follows her gaze around the room; Gaius’ eyes are dry but red, and Ganieda, incongruously, has a hand on the old man’s shoulder and tears streaming down her face.  She came to them from a Druid camp, he remembers, and it suddenly occurs to him to wonder how many people in Camelot, how many people he knows, have been hoping for this change all along.

King Uther knighted Leon; Uther’s most loyal knights trained Leon, taught him to serve and obey, to put aside his own opinions in favor of his king’s.  With Arthur, those ways were slowly shaken out of him; his King and Queen valued their First Knight’s opinion, considered his advice.  They considered everything, carefully, together.  Leon has seen enough of magic to know he hasn’t seen enough to judge; if Gwen believes this is right, he’ll follow.  Not, however, without questions.

“My Lady,” he says, breaking the bubble of silence that followed her announcement.  “If we are to allow free magic in Camelot, and enforce laws regarding it, we need to know more about it.  We need someone who  _ can _ enforce peaceful order on it.  After so many years under the ban...is there any such person left here?”

Gwen absolutely beams at him.  “You are the most pragmatic First Knight I could ever have asked for.  You are quite correct--we will need someone familiar with the workings of magic to help the transition.”

“The Druids will help, My Lady,” Ganieda bursts out, then bites her lip.  “Our clan leader, Iseldir, I’m sure he would be happy to advise you.”

“Thank you, Gonny,” Gwen replies, still grinning.  “After the proclamation tomorrow, we’ll arrange to send him a message.”

“I am at your service in this matter, of course,” Gaius adds, his expression rueful, “but I haven’t any power to speak of, with regard to...enforcing law.”

Gwen covers his hand with hers.  “Of course.”

Then Geoffrey clears his throat.  “Before the ban, King Uther’s court employed a sorcerer on the Council, specifically for this purpose.  But such a representative must be wisely chosen, to wield power responsibly and well in your service.”

“I have just such a person in mind, as a matter of fact.”  Gwen’s grin now looks to split her face right open, her cheeks high and flushed with excitement.  

Gaius stares at her, face an unreadable mix of emotions Leon can’t even begin to parse, and he’s about to ask the obvious question when Percival bursts out, “I know about Merlin!”

Now it’s Gwen’s turn to stare along with the rest of the room, as Percival turns sheepish under the scrutiny.  “I know I said I found him by the lake, after the King was already...but I lied.  I never got that far.  I was told everything by a dragon.”

Gaius makes a choked sort of sound, and Gwen boggles.  “A dragon?”

Percival nods.  “Ruddy huge thing!  Said he’d carried Arthur and Merlin to Avalon, but that it was too late.  And let me know, you know...about Merlin having magic.  Said Merlin is his kin, and can command him.”

“Merlin has  _ magic _ ?” Leon asks before he can stop himself, taken aback.  “He commands  _ dragons _ ?  Wait, was this the same dragon that nearly razed the citadel to the ground while Arthur went searching  _ for someone who could command a dragon _ ?”

“Sir Leon,” Gwen murmurs, and it’s then he realizes he’s risen to his feet, panting hard.  Leon closes his eyes, takes a breath, and sits again.  “It seems,” Gwen says, “that there is much discussion to be had and information to be shared tonight.  Gonny, would you be so kind as to fetch supper for us all now, and some wine?  Then we’ll hash this all out, to everyone’s satisfaction.”  She looks around the room for assent, landing on Leon last.  “Agreed?”

Leon feels a sudden strange weight upon him, of change happening, of the future leaning back to see this, now, when history gets so messily made.  He takes a slow, deliberate breath.  “Yes, My Lady,” he replies.  “Agreed.”


	9. The Port of Avalon Part V

Merlin might have teased Arthur about his disinterest in history (and, thinking about it now, Merlin might actually have been making up that hooey about Bruta placing Excalibur in the stone), but Arthur isn’t stupid.  He can see the patterns in things, he can absorb the rules of a new game.  When he finds himself back on the stairs and can find no sign of the door he just passed though, he just sighs and continues his ascent.  Obviously he’s meant to be gaining something from these encounters; the tower, or the island, or whatever magic enfolds this place, is herding him along from one conversation to the next.  It seems likely that everyone else here, those who are truly dead, are being herded in the same way.  But are they being rolled together by chance, like dice, or moved like chess pieces, with some strategy at work?

Did his father pass through this process?  Did his mother?  Will he see either of them here?

That hope spurs him onward and upward, and this time he doesn’t hesitate to enter the next room he finds.  He’s in a forest again, and after a glance around to get his bearings he recognizes it as a wood he and Merlin often hunted in.  He is alone here as far as he can tell, but the door he came through is already gone; there’s nothing to do but wait.  

He’s standing directly in front of the space where the next portal suddenly appears, and still he’s not sure what exactly he’s seen.  One moment he’s stepping around a boulder, the next moment a tall wooden door blocks his path, silent and sudden.  It’s unnerving, though no more so than anything else he’s seen so far.

A woman enters, spindly and white-haired, and Arthur startles.  “You!  You’re the one who gave me that magic horn.”  He looks around, understanding blooming slowly.  “It was in this wood.  This is where you died.”

Bemused, the old woman gives a careful bow.  “Indeed.  Did it aid you, King Arthur?  You’ve come to this tower just as young as I saw you last.”

“It caused a bit of trouble, actually,” he replies, and she laughs.

“Looked back, did you?  I ought to have warned you.  When you get to be my age, details are harder to keep hold of.”  

She bends to sit on the boulder and he takes her hands to assist, then crouches beside her.  “I’m learning that magic has a lot of strange rules that don’t make any sense.  Turning around at the wrong time, traveling miles by walking through a door in a tower…”

“Ah, but you haven’t travelled at all.  This forest is just a copy, a glamour.  There’s magic all the way down to the bones of this place, more powerful magic than humans have ever possessed,” she tells him.  “It gives you what you need.”  

Arthur grimaces, the skin crawling on the back of his neck.  “How does it know what I need?”

“That is a mystery only the Goddess knows the answer to,” the woman replies, and Arthur scowls.

“I don’t much like being shuffled about without knowing how or why.  But I suppose you haven’t been here much longer than I have.”

She shakes her head.  “Time is flexible here...but no, my journey thus far has seemed quite short, compared to the life I had before it.”

Arthur is suddenly painfully aware that they are just feet from the place where she died, and that though he and Merlin stayed with her and tried to help her, they never asked her name.

Either she can read his mind, which is an idea that has distressing implications for other magic users he knows, or his discomfort and bad manners are written plainly on his face.  Whichever it is, the woman regards him with a piercing sort of smile.  “Nessa, my lord,” she offers.

“Nessa.  Thank you.  I’m sorry we couldn’t do more for you.”

“You saved me much suffering, and I am grateful for it.  Now, tell me who you called when you used the Horn.  Your mother, perhaps?”

Arthur sighs.  “That might have been a better choice.  I wanted to see my father again.  To tell him...I’m not sure what I wanted to tell him.  That I missed him.”

“A goodhearted sentiment,” Nessa replies, though there’s a stiffness to her voice that hints at her feelings about Uther.

_ She has every right _ , he supposes.  Arthur’s been burned by magic, it’s undeniable, but Nessa would have been literally burned  _ for _ it, like so many before her.  Merlin’s confession was hardly the first time Arthur thought magic might not be the force of evil Uther said it was.   _ How Merlin must have hated my father _ .  

“He tried to murder my wife,” Arthur finally replies, “and injured one of my best knights.  He would have killed me, just to keep me from ruling the kingdom the way I thought was best.”

Nessa sighs, a deep, tired sound.  “Fear corrupts the mind, and breeds violence.  My ancestors fled  Ériu a hundred years ago, driven out by men of the Church and fear of magic, and brought the Horn with them.  This land was a haven for them then, a place of wild, free magic.”  She looks down at herself, at the tattered shift she died in.  “How times change.”

“They’ll change again,” Arthur says immediately, “I’m certain of it.  Guinevere will do all the things I couldn’t do.  Merlin can tell her the truth, and...well, they’ll do a better job of things than I did, I’m sure.”

“Merlin,” she murmurs.  “He was with you, the day you rescued me?”

“Yes, he’s my...he was my servant.”

“He did what he could for me, but even power such as his could not have kept me alive without consequence.”

Arthur looks up, startled.  “He tried to heal you with magic?  While I was there?”

She nods, bemused.  “I felt his magic touch mine.”

That stings, more than all the theoretical magic Merlin was doing behind Arthur’s back.  He can remember that evening in the woods, Merlin working quietly, a physician in his own right after his long apprenticeship, but there’s a sharp edge to the memory now.  Merlin, leaning low over Nessa so that Arthur wouldn’t see the glow of his eyes, or perhaps waiting until Arthur left to gather firewood before quietly breaking the law.  It makes his gut clench and his throat burn, to think again about how long Merlin lied, how long he waited for Arthur to come out from Uther’s long and terrible shadow.  How many tragedies might have been averted if Merlin could have used his powers openly.

Nessa must see some of this in his expression, because she reaches out to pull open his clenched hands.  “What’s done is done.  The world will change without you now--the Golden Age was foretold.”

With a gusty sigh Arthur tries to loosen all of his tensed muscles.  “If they used the Horn...could they talk to me?”

Nessa regards him, considering.  “You are not quite dead, I think.  Only spirits who have crossed the Veil may be summoned by the Horn’s magic.”

Arthur tries not to let the sharpness of his disappointment show.  “I’m not dead enough to get the perks, but I still have to trek through this interminable tower.”

“Your journey will be worth the effort to you in the end.”

“But how do you  _ know _ ?” Arthur asks, the question scraping through his tight throat.  “Everyone else I see seems to know what’s happening, was I meant to have a guide?  Am I supposed to know these things?”

Nessa calmly stares at him until he feels like a child in lessons.  “Some knowledge of Avalon has been passed down in the Old Religion for centuries.  Some was gleaned by the High Priestesses, using the Horn.  Your ignorance of these matters is a tragedy not entirely your fault, sire, but I cannot enlighten you.  I may only say that there will be an end to the Tower, a peak you will achieve when you have heard everything you need to hear.”

“And does the Tower decide what I need to hear, as well?  Does the Goddess?”

“Try to have a little faith, my lord,” Nessa says with a wry smile.  “You are in Her hands now.”


	10. The Return of Emrys

As is traditional, there is a great hunt at Ostara.  Guinevere wishes to be seen as capable, and confident, and equal to any man, so she takes Gaius’ draught for her queasy stomach, dons boots and breeches and an appropriately ornate tunic and cloak, and rides out with the knights and the lords and ladies of court who favor such sport.  She has done it before.  Years ago, she spent the equinox lost and injured under Morgana’s enchantment; as Arthur’s queen, she righted that painful separation, reassured herself by joining the hunt at her husband’s side.  Now, his absence is a hole in her chest.  She can take no joy from the day, and calls an end when the hunters have bagged enough game to feast upon.

There are always visiting nobility at festival times, even more so now; they all wish to take the measure of a Queen on her own, assess the strength or weakness of a Camelot learning to accept magic again.  The citadel now hosts a small but visible Druid presence, and Gaius speaks for magic on her Council, but the place of Court Sorcerer remains empty and the candidate she most wishes to see has yet to return.  

In spite of all this, there are no nobles quite demanding enough to require her personal attention in the slow hours between the hunt and the feast; Guinevere is tired, worn thin with stress and sorrow, so she retreats to her secret sanctuary to rest.  Gaius isn’t in his chambers, but his door is never locked.  She lets herself in, crosses the room and ascends the stairs to Merlin’s tiny quarters, and slumps down, relieved, on the lumpy bed.

The room is cleaner than it ever was when Merlin resided in it, the straw of the mattress new and fragrant, the bedding freshly washed.  Gwen asked her maid to keep it in readiness, both for her own use when she needs a hiding place, and so it’s prepared for Merlin’s return.  Though she and Gonny began to form a bond almost immediately, Gwen suspects that the girl takes on this particular task out of respect for “Emrys” as much as a sense of duty to her.  Still, there is some trust between herself and her maid now, and she knows she may rest here in secret and undisturbed until Gonny fetches her for dinner.

There’s comfort and peace in the simple room, the simple bed.  She curls up with her face to the window, and somewhere between one cloud passing outside and another, she drifts into sleep.

***

Guinevere dreams of trees and the shadowy spaces between them.  In the dream, she knows the forest is Ascetir, though it looks nothing like she remembers it.  It is deeper, filled with a crawling mist and an unnatural stillness.  It is both unsettling and a relief, after the noise and crowd of a forest full of hunters and baying hounds.

Slowly, she becomes aware of a call in the distance, sounds in the shape of her name.  She strikes out in that direction, and as she travels, the sounds coalesce into Merlin’s voice.

 _Gwen_ , he calls, gentle and familiar, louder as she hurries onward.  

“Merlin?” she shouts back, and her cry echoes.

 _Gwen_ , she hears again, all around her, and then loud and close, as if he is speaking right into her ear, _Gwen!_

An animal crashes through the brush and mist, landing in a heap at her feet.  She leaps back, startled, then crouches to get a better look.  It’s a falcon, small and speckled with brown and white, and it writhes on the mossy ground, its wings mangled.  “Oh, easy, easy,” she coos to it, “you’ll hurt yourself more,” and the bird collapses, exhausted and breathing fast.  She reaches out to touch it, gingerly, stroking a finger along its heaving breast, and at her touch it transforms.  In the way of dreams, this isn’t strange; one moment it’s an injured falcon, the next it’s a long-limbed hare with tall, black-tipped ears that tilt toward her and dark eyes that fix on hers.  It seems whole and well, and this is a relief.  “There, that’s better,” she murmurs to it, and the hare shakes itself, rubs its front paws over its face and ears, and takes off lightning-quick into the undergrowth.

Where it lay, nestled into the earth, is a nest.  In the nest are three eggs; they are not speckled rusty brown, as they should be, but shocking colors.  One is yellow as a buttercup, another blue as the ocean.  The third is red, Camelot red, Pendragon red, and she reaches for this one.  She feels certain that, when she touches it, it will transform just as the falcon did, into something she very much wants to see--

 _My lady,_ she hears, Merlin’s voice murmuring to her again, and she whips her head around but cannot find the man himself.  

“Merlin!  Where are you?  Merlin!”

Guinevere wakes suddenly, the cry in her throat, to the sun low in the sky and a chill in the room.  She lays still, getting her bearings.  With a strange pang, she remembers Arthur jolting awake in her arms with Merlin’s name on his lips on their last night together.  She wonders what this means, but doesn’t get a chance to contemplate it for long; a moment later there’s a quiet knock on the door, and then it creaks open as Gonny slips into the room and curtseys.

“My lady,” she says.  “It’s time to dress you for dinner.”

***

The feast is a riot of color, thick with the smells of food and warm bodies, and cacophonous with noise.  They always are, and Gwen has seen them from both sides of the table; tonight is nothing special, and she isn’t much in the mood.  She eats the choice servings that Gonny puts in front of her, and drinks her wine well-watered, and makes polite conversation with Lady Elaine on her left and Lord Nennius on her right.  She is just starting to consider retiring early and leaving the nobles and the knights to their revelry when a guard crashes into the hall, breathless, and skids into a hasty bow before the head table.

“My Lady!” he gasps.  “At the Lower Gate!  An old man, a sorcerer, he wishes entry to the city!”

Guinevere frowns at the guard.  “Camelot has been open to those with magic for months,” she reminds him, and he nods his head, still panting for breath.

“He rides a dragon, my Lady, a white dragon!  We were afraid to let it enter the town.”

Guinevere finds herself on her feet without conscious decision, and when she looks down the table at Gaius, he is standing too, his expression brittle with hope.  That is the only assurance she needs; without a word she gathers her skirts and strides from the room.  Behind her she hears commotion erupt, and Leon’s voice above it.

“Percival!” he calls sharply, and by the time she is through the doors and in the hall, there are two sets of footsteps shadowing her, mail clinking as they hurry to catch up.  

One benefit of being Queen is the way everyone in the halls makes way as she passes, and at last she bursts through through the doors and down the steps into the courtyard, then breaks into a run.  Leon and Percival keep pace behind her, not stopping her, saying nothing as they race across the drawbridge, down into the Lower Town.  People stop and stare, but Gwen doesn’t care in the least for propriety; she knows the town like the back of her hand, and sprints the shortest route to the gate.

A pack of guards surround a stooped figure just inside the wall, and outside, through the doors, she can see shifting flashes of white.

“Let him enter!” she shouts as she approaches.  “Let him be!”

The old man turns to her, and a flicker of a smile crosses his face.  As the guards step back he moves toward her, hesitant at first and then faster; as they close the distance between them, the white hair and the beard and the wrinkles seem to slide away, and Merlin flies into her arms with a wet gasp.

“You’re home,” she murmurs as he hides his face in her hair, and she holds him tightly with a hand on his back and the other cradling his precious bent head.

“Gwen,” he chokes out, a shudder running through him, and it runs through her too, joy and pain crashing together like thunder in her chest.  

“It’s all right,” she whispers.  “I’ve got you.”

He shudders again, breathing hard, and she can feel his fingers clutching into the laces at the back of her dress, gripping her like a lifeline.  She tries to soothe him, stroking the curls of hair at his nape with her thumb, but she finds her own fingers are trembling; instead she swivels gently side to side, rocking them in place.  A hand covers Merlin’s on her back, and a shadow falls over them; Leon and Percival, flanking them, shielding them as best they can from the crowd gathering in the street.  

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Merlin sobs into her neck, tense and shaking with feeling.  There’s such agony in his voice, but she cannot allow herself to lose control here.  Gwen shakes her head fiercely.  

“It’s all right,” she tells him, a thick lump in her throat despite her efforts at calm.  It doesn’t matter what he’s sorry for; any of it, all of it, was forgiven the moment she saw her friend’s eyes in the old sorcerer’s face.

Behind her come hurried footsteps.  “Merlin!   _Merlin!_ ”

Merlin lifts his face, eyes red and cheeks streaked with tears.  “Gaius?”

“My boy,” comes the familiar voice, suspiciously wet, and Gaius’ arms enfold them both.  “ _My boy_.”

***

Later, when they’ve all finished making a spectacle of themselves and Merlin’s dragon (“Aithusa,” he tells them, and the creature trills happily when Merlin shows Gwen how to pet her leathery pink nose) has been settled for the night on the top of a turret, Gaius shepherds Gwen and Merlin and Leon and Percival to his chambers for soothing mulled wine and privacy.  There is much to talk and cry and laugh about; Percival tells Merlin of his encounter with the Great Dragon, Leon recounts Gwen’s ferocious arguments with the Council about the repeal of the magic ban.  Merlin, with many stops and starts, gives them some understanding of Arthur’s last days.  If he’s surprised that they already  knew his magical nature, he doesn’t show it; Gwen thinks that perhaps after revealing the truth to Arthur and finding acceptance, Merlin has nothing left to fear.


	11. The Port of Avalon Part VI & VII

As much as she reminds him of his childhood tutors, Arthur is reluctant to part with Nessa.  Still, when their doors arrive, she urges him on and he steps through back onto the Tower stairs.  He makes his way up and around a few more rotations of the spiral before the next door presents itself, this one a little more worn-looking than the others have been; he passes through it into the dark, rubble-strewn interior of a ruined castle.  It looks a bit less impressive without enormous tear in the Veil at one end, but Arthur immediately knows the hall and the altar as the Isle of the Blessed.  There is nothing left to mark the place where Lancelot gave himself up to save Arthur’s, and everyone’s, lives--just Arthur’s memory of the pulsing blackness of that rip in the world, and of waking up too late to change anything, Merlin leaning over him pale-faced and tear-streaked.

It’s a painful, shameful memory, and laced with the rot of Lancelot’s later betrayal.  What new heartache is he meant to learn in this cursed place?  Will Lancelot be the one to meet him here?  Arthur steps hesitantly toward the space where he thinks the tear was, gut churning at the possibility

It’s almost a relief when he hears the creak of hinges behind him and turns to find Morgause, robed and scarred, staring in shock at him from atop the stone altar.  Morgause was never a friend; Arthur feels no compunctions when returning her stare with a hard look of his own.

“Arthur,” she murmurs, and he can see triumph seeping into her eyes and the twist of her mouth.  “Arthur Pendragon, here at last.”

He keeps his distance, wary, and it occurs to him that he should have asked Nessa if magic works inside the Tower; he is without his weapon, but Morgause may be in full possession of hers.  She makes no move toward him, just climbs down from the altar with some difficulty, then trains her marred gaze back on his.

“Why are we here?  Is this where you died?” he asks, gesturing around them without breaking their gaze.

“It was my sacrifice that opened the Veil,” Morgause replies calmly, quiet.  “Though it didn’t go as we planned.  You were meant to die here too.”

“I tried to,” Arthur admits, hands clenching into fists.  “Someone had to end the  _ massacre _ your ‘sacrifice’ began.”

“All for nothing,” she agrees, leaning back against the altar with an infuriatingly casual sort of air.  “Hundreds died, but you lived.”

“You could have killed me the first time we met!” Arthur shouts.  “You had your sword to my throat, but you wanted to trick me and torture me instead!”

Morgause shrugs.  “I wanted to get the measure of you.  There was a chance, the smallest chance, that you had more of your mother in you--that you would do what was right after learning the truth.  I had hoped...but I lost that bargain.”

“Murdering my father in a rage could never have been what was right, even if that  _ was _ the truth.  No matter what he’d done.”  Arthur takes a slow breath, trying to match Morgause’s casual calm.  “Merlin was right to stop me.”

“Ah yes,” she says, a flash of anger in her eyes at last.  “Merlin.  Liar, schemer, traitor to his kind.”  Her face contorts into a snarl.  “All the innocents lost in our struggles, our wars, their deaths are on his head.  He betrayed magic that day, and every day after.”

Arthur considers this sudden crack in Morgause’s calm, whether or not to prod this apparent open wound at the risk of reopening his own, when they are both rocked nearly off their feet by a sudden crackling of thunder.  All of the hair on Arthur’s arms rises in response to the tang of lightning, and when he gets his bearings again they stand beside another stone altar, this time in a grassy courtyard in the open air.  The ground is scorched where lightning seems to have struck it, and then the thunder claps again and a figure appears.  “Merlin betrayed magic long before any of your plans, little sister,” the figure says, her cold voice familiar.  “He denied himself from the moment he entered Camelot, and he killed me to save a Pendragon.  His path holds much well-deserved pain.”

“Lady Nimue,” Morgause murmurs, moving toward the figure before the flash has even cleared from Arthur’s eyes.  When he can see properly, he finds Morgause embracing a dark-haired young woman in a singed, bedraggled red dress.  After a moment, he places her--the sorceress who tricked him and nearly killed him getting that blasted flower in that giant-spider-infested cave.   _ Nimue.  I remember that name.  And Merlin...Merlin killed her. _

Nimue holds Morgause at arm’s length, looking her up and down, then traces the scarred side of Morgause’s face, almost tenderly.  “My poor girl.  You’ve suffered so much for our kind.”

“I failed, in the end,” Morgause murmurs, “but Morgana carried on after me.”

“So I saw,” Nimue replies, looking past Morgause and fixing her eyes on Arthur.  “Destiny can always find its path, no matter what obstacles stand in the way.”

Morgause turns to look at Arthur as well, and he resists the incredible urge to squirm.  “I don’t believe in destiny,” he says instead, squaring his shoulders, and Nimue smiles.

“That has no bearing on its outcome.  Your mother set it into motion the moment she agreed to use magic to conceive you.  Her death and your birth brought forth the Purge and the Golden Age, as was foretold.”

“They did use magic, then.  My parents,” Arthur says, and Morgause glares.

“I gave you the chance to hear it from your mother’s own lips,” she tells him, clipped and sharp.  “You allowed yourself to be convinced otherwise.”

Arthur meets her gaze.  “I did wonder, for many years after.  How much of that was your...spin on things.  How much of it made sense.  I too have turned to magic to help the people I love.”

“You are very like your father when he was a young man,” Nimue says, softly, her hand on Morgause’s arm.  “You have his mind, his cunning.  He always did exactly what he thought he had to for those under his charge.  And he wanted an heir.”

“As did I,” Arthur replies, “but it wasn’t to be.  I learned from his mistakes.  Made my own choices.  I won’t let my reign be attributed to destiny, instead of the things Guinevere and Merlin and I accomplished.”

“Call it what you like, Arthur Pendragon.  The future will come for you yet.”  Then Nimue’s eyes slide past him and he turns to see, behind him, another door.


	12. The Queen's Court Sorcerer

The castle without Arthur in it is stranger and more painful than Merlin ever could have anticipated.  Every hallway and flagstone and window is written over with memories, and every face he sees is not the one he wants to see the most.  He spends his first week back mostly holed up in the safety of his bed, the easy sounds of Gaius’ puttering filtering through the door.  His room was fresh and perfectly kept when he arrived home, and the gesture made his chest ache.  His own overpowering grief had made him forget--Gwen, Gaius, the whole castle was also grieving.

When his tiny room and his own circular thoughts become too much, he climbs to the easternmost turret, where Aithusa has made herself a nest of straw and, thanks to Guinevere, bedding from Morgana’s old chambers pulled out of storage.  There can’t possibly be any scent of her on them anymore, after years and years in an old cedar chest, but Aithusa seems to take comfort from them anyway.  Merlin knows how she feels; there was a basket of Arthur’s mending left untouched in Merlin’s cupboard, some of which is now tucked under the pillow of his bed.  

Sometimes they fly, circling wider and wider around the citadel and the lands beyond.  Sometimes Merlin just curls up with Aithusa in the nest, tells her stories and listens to the trilling and mental images she uses to speak.  Every day, Merlin tries to press a bit of healing magic into Aithusa’s marred skin, down into her twisted frame.  She lets him, though his efforts don’t seem to have much effect.

His friends leave him be for those first few difficult days, giving him his space, but he knows it won’t last.  Gwen and her Council have done a brilliant job so far with lifting the ban on magic and mending the wounds left by Uther’s reign, and it goes a long way toward smoothing the ragged edges inside Merlin to see the tentative but free and open use of magic in the castle and down in the Lower Town.  He hasn’t much used his own, just a conjured butterfly here and there to amuse Aithusa and a fire in Gaius’ grate that needs no tending, but the fear that sat so deep in him thaws bit by bit.  He knows that Gwen will need help, as magic comes into more frequent use, and that there is so much yet to do.  Treaties based on Uther’s laws must be renegotiated, the kingdom ought to have magical defenses as well as the knights, some kind of restitution given to the Druids and restoration of sacred sites of the Old Religion.  

Merlin always hoped that someday, in the bright impossible future, he would do those things with Arthur.

Instead, it’s Gwen who comes to him at last in the turret, sinking down cross-legged beside him in the nest, leaning back against Aithusa’s flank as though spending the afternoon in the hay with a servant and a dragon were utterly commonplace.  She’s silent for some time, just pressing her shoulder and her knee against his.

“I’m not sure I’ve thanked you yet,” Merlin says finally, to break the silence.  “For everything you’ve done.  For--you know.  Magic.”

She grasps his hand in hers and smiles at him as though he’s said something ridiculous.  “Merlin.   _ I _ should be thanking  _ you. _ ”

He squeezes her fingers and shakes his head, the empty place inside him throbbing.  “Nothing to thank me for.”

“Don’t be foolish, Merlin,” she replies fiercely, ducking into his space to catch his eyes again.  “There is plenty to thank you for.  And there will be more, if I have my way.”  He huffs a laugh, and her face softens.  “I need you, just as much as Arthur did.”

Merlin swallows hard.  “How can I help?” he asks, trembly, and Gwen wraps an arm tightly around his shoulders, pressing their cheeks together.

“I want you to be my Court Sorcerer,” she says into the quiet.  “I want you to be my right hand.”

Merlin licks his lips, tasting salt.  “All right,” he murmurs back.  “Let’s change the world.”

***

They agree on the important things, the big things.  What Merlin doesn’t expect are the disagreements about tiny things.  First it’s what he ought to wear now that he’s “important.”

“There’s not going to be any fussy embroidery or anything, is there?” he begs as he and Gwen stand arms-out at the mercy of the Royal Seamstress and her assistant.  “I’m happy for the nicer fabric, and a warmer coat will come in handy, but I don’t want to be decked out like some fop.”

“Do you honestly think I would do that to you?” Gwen scolds, exasperated.  “Could you go a bit higher on the waist, Marjorie?”

“Of course, My Lady,” Marjorie agrees, bringing her string and pins higher.  

Merlin sighs.  “I just don’t know how you do it.  I’ve  _ watched _ you do it, and I still don’t understand.”

Gwen’s eyes slide over to his, trying not to move her shoulders and disturb the pins.  “Make the transition?” she asks shrewdly.

“It’s just...how did we get here?” Merlin asks.  “When we met, I was chained in the stocks with tomato on my face and you were probably off on your way to clean something.”  Daisy, the seamstress pinning him, huffs a soft laugh at that but doesn’t look up from her task; Merlin can’t help but smile a little too.  “It’s a strange world we’re in now, isn’t it?”

A laugh bursts from Gwen’s mouth.  “We’re the ones making it strange.  Let’s just take it one thing at a time, shall we?  And let’s look impressive doing it.”

***

After Merlin submits to the wardrobe change, it’s whether Merlin’s new position entitles him to his own quarters.

“You heard what Geoffrey said at Council this morning,” Gwen persists, stalking Merlin through the halls toward the Physician’s quarters.  “The Court Sorcerer is historically one of the highest-ranking councillors!  Seated at the High Table at feasts, addressed as Lord!”

Merlin whirls, pointing a warning finger at her.  “I will NOT be called Lord Merlin--”

“--except on the most formal of occasions or by visiting nobility, yes, I remember the agreement.”

“And Gaius isn’t getting any younger, by the way, he needs help!  I can’t leave him all alone!”

Gwen frowns at him, hands on her hips.  “Merlin, you can’t possibly do everything.  If you move to your own chambers, Gaius can get an actual assistant, who’s there to  _ assist _ him.  You’re not an apprentice anymore, you could be a physician in your own right, if you didn’t  _ already have a very important and time-consuming job _ .”

The thought of Gaius with another assistant, a  _ replacement _ , draws him up short.  His room, his place, given over to some other eager young apprentice who would probably be a better study and far less trouble than Merlin ever was?  He’s never properly contemplated before how horrible that would be.

Gwen signs, her expression softening.  “You’re like a son to Gaius, you know that.  Nobody could ever take your place in his life.  But you’re right--he needs help, and someday when he can’t keep up anymore, we’re going to need another physician to take over.”

“I know, Gwen, I just...you know, Leon said Gaius made supper for two every day that I was gone.  Every day.”  He wrings his hands together, a new nervous habit he’d never had time for as a servant, when things were somehow simpler and didn’t involve so much diplomacy.

“Nothing’s stopping you from having supper with him,” Gwen reassures him, taking his elbow and guiding him along.  “I was thinking this room right here.”

Merlin stares at the door in front of them, then peers down the hall.  “This is...right next door to Gaius’ chambers.

Gwen pats his arm.  “Yes, Merlin.  Come look inside.”  She shoves the door open, and it creaks with disuse; it’s a guest chamber, clearly, but one Merlin can’t ever remember housing actual guests in.  “Too much foot traffic on this hallway at all hours of the night,” Gwen explains, steering him past a table covered in dust and a bed frame with no mattress.  “It went out of use years ago, but we can have it cleaned up in no time.  You’ll be right in the thick of things.”

The smile she turns on him is so radiant with her own clever choice that Merlin gives in on the spot.

The problem of a new physician’s apprentice, to Merlin’s surprise, solves itself only days after Merlin vacates his old room.  He arrives for lunch with Gaius to find another young man sitting in his customary place at the worn wooden table; when the man turns, Merlin recognizes him with a start.

“ _ Gilli? _ ”

“Merlin!”  At once Merlin is wrapped in a brisk hug, then his hand wrung for good measure.  “I kept hearing the rumors, but I had to see for myself.  Court Sorcerer of Camelot!  I honestly never thought I’d see the day.”

The warmth of Gilli’s greeting startles Merlin into a laugh.  “Most days I can’t believe it either.  But tell me where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing all this time!”

Gilli smiles ruefully.  “Not nearly as much as what you’ve been doing, it seems.  Mostly lying low.”

“You can hardly be blamed for that,” Gaius says mildly, setting lunch on the table.  “Many would think it the smartest course, given the circumstances.”

Gilli laughs, and Merlin squirms.  “Well, you’re here now!  Gwen’s been at me to train up some magical knights, maybe you could be the first.”

With a smaller smile, Gilli glances at Gaius and back to Merlin again.  “Actually, I’ve sort of lost my taste for fighting,” he admits.  “But Gaius was just telling me that he’s in need of a new apprentice.”

“Oh, has he now?” Merlin says, his mouth slowly curving up into a grin.

“Indeed,” Gaius replies.  “One who has proper time to devote to studying the scientific and medicinal arts.”

“Better you than me, then,” Merlin murmurs to Gilli, who chuckles into his food.  

***

What Merlin and Gwen argue about most, though, is whether Merlin needs his own manservant.

“I am NOT making some poor boy slave for me like I slaved for Arthur, Gwen, and that’s the end of it.  Anything a manservant would do, I can do faster and easier with magic.”

Gwen sighs.  “I know it’s strange, Merlin, it was strange for me too.  It still is.  But you’re going to be  _ busy _ , I’m not sure you understand how much.  I’m not saying you should make him dress you or draw your bath if you don’t want to, I’m just saying you’ll need someone to keep your schedule, to remind you to eat.  Just someone to help you.”

“I don’t want help,” he replies, flopping down into a chair and covering his face with one hand.  “I just...I can’t.  I can’t yet.”

“All right,” Gwen says quietly.  “But Gonny is going to bring you meals, and you are going to eat them.”

Merlin drops his hand and manages a weak smile.  “Gonny brings me meals anyway.  She hasn’t got over the Emrys thing yet.”

“Yes, she tells me you’re quite a big deal in Druid circles.”  

“Something like that.”  Merlin stretches his legs out under the table, flexing the stiff muscles in his thighs and calves.  It’s been a long day and a longer evening, the fire and the candles at the table burning down, and his days are much more sedentary than they ever were as a servant.

He ought to go back to his own chambers, and let Gwen sleep--though how she can sleep in rooms that used to be Uther’s, he can’t fathom.  “Doesn’t it give you the creeps, a bit?  Being in here all night?”

Gwen looks up from the sheaf of papers in front of her, tilting her head and smiling indulgently.  “Don’t tell me you’re scared, Merlin.  Uther is long gone.  Even his  _ ghost _ is long gone.”  Then her gaze sharpens.  “Right?”  

“Yes.  Absolutely.  Ghost is definitely gone.  It’s just...there must have been other chambers--”

“Merlin, if there’s anything I’ve learned about being Queen, it’s that on the small scale, appearances and practicality trump my feelings.”

“And on the large scale?” Merlin asks, knocking his foot into hers under the table.

Gwen smiles, knocking back.  “My judgement takes precedence, just as Arthur’s did.”

“I like your judgement a bit better than Arthur’s, so far,” Merlin replies, trying for light and failing.

“Oh, Merlin,” Gwen murmurs, and reaches across for his hands.  He lays them on the table and lets her take them.  “We spoke about it.  Lifting the ban.  We spoke about it many times.  If he had known about you...Merlin, he would have done it.  I believe that.”  

“I didn’t want him to do it because of me.  I wanted him to do it because it was right,” Merlin says, and there’s a thread of anger in it he didn’t even know he still felt.  Gwen squeezes his fingers hard, half empathy, half scolding.  

“Merlin.  Arthur looked to you to  _ know _ what was right.  You more than anyone.”  

He focuses on her hands around his, that warm point of contact, screwing up his face against the sudden heat in his eyes.  “I once told him that there could be no place for magic in Camelot.  I thought it would save him.  I was so stupid,” he says, and Gwen’s chair scrapes against the floor, and in a moment she’s got her arms around him.

“None of that, now.  We’ve both made mistakes, and Arthur made his share.  Mistakes get bigger when the stakes are higher, but we’re only human.”  Merlin privately isn’t sure that he can be called entirely human, anymore, but he nods into Gwen’s shoulder anyway and hides his face there until he can open his eyes without crying.  Gwen perches on the arm of the chair, rubbing her fingertips in slow circles against his arm.  Then she leans her head against his, the castle night-time still and quiet all around them.  “He loved you so much, Merlin,” she murmurs.

Merlin can’t do anything but laugh at that, a brittle and involuntary sound.  “What?”

Gwen’s arms tighten around his shoulders as if she thinks he’ll make a break for it, or fall to pieces right there.  “I think he never figured out how to express anything that wasn’t expected of him, how to understand emotions that weren’t part of the life laid out for a King,” she says, still quiet, “but he had such a big heart, in spite of that.  If there’s anything I’ve learned in all this time, it’s that an open heart has room for many loves.”

Merlin shudders, then twists in her arms, pulling away.  He gets to his feet, and his chest is cracking open and anger is suddenly pouring out like dragon fire, blazing through his blood and setting his magic alight.  “Why would you say that?” he chokes out, pacing away and then turning back to her.  “You were his  _ wife _ , he was supposed to love  _ you _ .  Why would you--!”

He can feel his magic pulsing into the air around them like the muggy heat before a storm, but Gwen is watching him pace and tremble without the slightest shadow of fear in her face.  “He did love me.  Arthur loved me, and Lancelot loved me, and I loved them.  That stays with me, inside me, even though they’re gone.”  She presses a hand against her chest.  “It’s a comfort to me.  I hoped it might be a comfort to you.”

“Well it’s not!” Merlin shouts, and the flames of all the candles in the room flare higher.  “It’s too late now, he’s  _ dead _ !”  The room is fading around him, narrowing down to just the steady, unbroken contact of Gwen’s eyes.  Vaguely he hears a guard knock on the door and ask if everything is all right; in his mind, Aithusa probes gently, disturbed by his distress.  Gwen doesn’t even blink, or raise her voice.

“But you did love him,” she says.  The sad, knowing certainty in her voice is unbearable.

“ _ Of course I loved him _ !” Merlin cries as the candles and the fire in the grate flare up wildly, then go out with a  _ whoosh _ .  “ _ I’ll always love him _ !”  

Sudden darkness cloaks the room, heavy and quiet, eating up the words.  He’s never spoken them aloud before.  Never really thought those words before, but he knows they’re true.

Gwen is just a darker shadow against the gloom, but her eyes glitter.  “Good,” she says.  “Keep that one flame alive, and everything else will follow with time.”

Merlin takes a slow, shuddering breath, deflating as the tide of anger retreats.  Suddenly exhausted, he leans against the table.  He feels past the point of anger now, and past tears, though his face is tight and swollen as though he’s been crying again.  He doesn’t protest when Gwen’s hands find his and draw him over to the bed, sitting him on the edge to pull off his boots and his jacket.  She unwinds the neckerchief from around his neck and pushes him down into the pillows.  He can hear her rustling about for a little while after that, opening the door to murmur quietly to the guards, or maybe to Gonny.  Finally, she slides into the space beside him and pulls the blanket up.  He listens to her breathing in the quiet room and lets Aithusa purr into his mind until sleep takes him.

***

The bedcurtains are open, and there is moonlight streaming in the window.  The blanket is gone, and the light melts along the curves of the figure beside him.  It’s Arthur.

Merlin can see his gleaming hair, his smooth bare shoulders and back, the curve of his spine and the dimples just above the waist of his trousers.  Merlin hasn’t always wanted to press his thumbs into those dimples, wrap his hands around Arthur’s waist, but he wants it very much in this moment.  On the other side of Arthur is Guinevere, her bare leg lifted up over Arthur’s clothed ones, foot flexing restlessly back and forth; her hand is curled into a fist in the hair at the back of Arthur’s head.  As Merlin’s eyes adjust, he realizes they’re moving--an unmistakable rhythm scored with the soft scraping of the sheets and the wet sounds of their connection.  The whole bed rocks with it; Merlin thinks that must be what woke him.

Gwen gasps out Arthur’s name, and he grunts in response, hips flexing faster.  Merlin watches, transfixed, and wishes he could see their faces.  Instead, he traces the shifting line of Arthur’s arm with his eyes, following it as it disappears around Gwen’s body.  The white silk of her nightdress glows in the dim room, rucked up between them.

“ _ Merlin _ ,” Arthur groans, low and urgent.  Merlin is flushed through with a sudden, queasy mix of lust and shame, to witness this, to hear his name on Arthur’s tongue instead of Gwen’s.

Then Gwen cries out, “Merlin, the spell, hurry!”

The spell.  Of course.  

He presses up close against Arthur’s back, and it’s so good, so hot and perfect there with Arthur’s arse rolling back against him even through their trousers, and he’s so hard he can barely think.  “The spell,” he breathes, reminding himself, and slides his hand along Arthur’s arm, following it around, down between Gwen’s legs where Arthur’s fingers are rubbing.  Then he lays his palm just above Arthur’s, flat against Gwen’s smooth stomach, and feels her trembling.

“ _ Gielde ic þec þissa méowles sawol _ ,” he begins, his magic welling up eagerly, “ _ Gyden æblæce. _ ”  Gwen shudders as his magic reaches for her, into her.

“ _ Please, _ ” Arthur whispers between them.

Merlin presses his chin into the curve of Arthur’s shoulder.  “ _ Méowle forsciepeþ oþ byrðran _ .”  

“ _ Yes _ ,” Gwen moans, throwing her head back; her eyes are closed tight, her mouth hanging open as she gasps for breath.  Between them, Arthur growls, the pace of his hips and his hand picking up tempo.  The magic is pulsing through Merlin now, filling him up and spilling over.  

“ _ Ar ond heofontungol sceal þurhswiþan! _ ”

There is a flash of white like the moon in their bed, and for a moment Merlin can see nothing.  He can hear, though, hear Gwen sobbing out her pleasure, feel her body convulsing under his arm.  Arthur follows her over, shouting, hips spasming through it, into her and back against Merlin.  It’s too much, and not enough at all, and Merlin grips them both with arms and legs as though he can fuse himself right into them.  His cock  _ aches _ , and he shoves it hard up against Arthur, chasing that feeling just out of reach--

He wakes gasping, hard as steel, alone in the Queen’s bed.

It takes him a long, bewildering moment to realize that the sun is up, that he was dreaming.  He’s painfully aroused and utterly mortified--he’s dreamt of Arthur often, and Gwen sometimes, but never like  _ that _ , and his stomach rolls in discomfort.  There were occasional...mishaps, over the three years of Arthur and Gwen’s marriage, when Merlin forgot to knock before barging into the room with an urgent message or a new fertility tonic.  But to dream himself right into their bed--it feels like a betrayal, invasive, even as it makes his balls throb.  He curls up under the blanket, trying to will his erection down, and failing miserably until he remembers that this is Gwen’s new bed, not the one she and Arthur shared, and before that it was the bed Uther slept and died in.

That thought is enough to wilt the strongest passions.  When he’s pulled himself together he ventures out from under the covers again, taking in the room.  By the angle of the sun it’s late morning; Gwen must already be going about her busy day.  Gonny has clearly been and gone as well, and left him a plate of cold breakfast on the table.

_ It must have been what Gwen said last night _ , he thinks,  _ that made me dream like that _ .  He remembers his outburst the night before with a wince; he hasn’t lost control of his magic since he was a boy.  When he reaches for it now it surges up eagerly, leashed and awaiting his command.  There was magic in his dream, too, now that he’s calm enough to think about it, and he tries to remember if the words made any sense, or were just dream-mutterings.  Something about maiden and mother, the White Goddess--

Then, in a moment’s flash of insight, he puts it all together.  Impatiently he tugs his boots back on, grabs his neckerchief from the side table and lopes out the door.

He finds Gwen at the Round Table, in a Council meeting he is probably meant to be at and is now quite rudely late for.  Perhaps it says something about Merlin’s habits that no one in the room seems surprised or offended at his belated appearance, but Gwen takes one look at his face and her brow furrows in concern.

“Queen Annis has sent a message asking if she might visit with you,” Leon is saying, but Gwen just holds Merlin’s gaze across the table.  “My Lady?”

“Please tell her she is most welcome,” Gwen murmurs, still not looking away.  “Why don’t we break for lunch?  I must meet with the Court Sorcerer.”

Merlin can sense more than a few pairs of eyes on him then, but everyone on the Council knows a dismissal when they hear one, and slowly the file out.  Gaius is the last to stand from the table, looking between them; when he passes by Merlin, he lays a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, then shuts the chamber doors behind him.

The table has never seemed so huge as now when he’s hastening around it, and he skids to his knees beside Gwen’s chair before she can rise.

“Merlin, what’s the matter?” she asks, a thread of fear in her voice.  “Are you all right?”

He reaches out, wanting to lay his palm against her stomach as he did in his dream, but hesitates; then he can see the change in her eyes, the truth of it in her face, and he has to bite his lip hard to keep from crying again for the millionth time since he came home.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Gwen grasps his hand and drags it the rest of the way to her belly; it protrudes just a bit, hidden under the voluminous skirts of her gown.  Her other hand strokes his hair nervously.  “I wanted to wait as long as I could...I didn’t want you to know if something went wrong,” she replies in a wobbly voice, and Merlin moves closer, pressing his cheek against the tiny bump.

“ _ Nothing’s _ going to go wrong,” he tells her fiercely, as if he can make it so by strength of will.  “I won’t fail this time.”

“ _ Merlin _ ,” she says, scolding and joyous at once.  He wraps his arms around her waist and she hugs him tightly to her, and a laugh bubbles up his throat--it’s been so long since he laughed, it shocks more tears out of him.  Gwen laughs too, and they stay that way, laughing and crying and making a mess of themselves, until Merlin’s knees ache from the hard floor and Leon hesitantly pokes his head in to ask what on Earth is the matter and might they resume the Council meeting soon?

***

“It’s too small for you to feel it yet,” Gwen says later in her chambers when Merlin plants himself beside her on the edge of her bed with a hand still trained to her belly.  

“But you can feel it?” he asks, disappointed.  She nods.

“It’s strange.”

“Quickening?  I should think so.”

Gwen shakes her head.  “The whole thing.  We tried for so long to have a child, since the night we were married.  I thought I must be barren.”

Remembering his dream, Merlin fights down a blush.  “I have a theory about that.”

“Really?” She regards him with interest, and he tries not to squirm.

“The spell that freed you from Morgana’s control...it invoked the White Goddess to heal you.  Her power touched you,” he tells Gwen, “Her blessing.  That’s intense magic, on a scale even I can’t really fathom.”

“I see,” she says, looking a bit shaken.  “Then I hope the babe carries that blessing with it into the world.”

Merlin smiles.  “Maybe it’ll be born with magic.  My mum always said that my powers were a blessing from the gods.”

Gwen bites her lip, but then smiles tiredly.  “If you think that’s likely, then maybe I should have a nice long chat with your mum.  And perhaps with that old sorceress.”

“Um,” Merlin says, sheepish.  “There wasn’t a sorceress.  That was me.”

“It was never!” Gwen shouts, smacking his arm and staring at him.  “You?  Merlin!”

He throws up his hands to fend her off.  “It was Gaius’ idea!  I needed a disguise, and I’d already used the old man one too many times!”

“I knew  _ that _ one must be you,” she replies, smiling now and shaking her head.  “But the old woman as well!  So it was your spell that brought this about.”

“Not on purpose,” he protests, then backtracks.  “Not that I wouldn’t have helped, if you’d asked, or if you’d known to ask, but that wasn’t what I was trying to do that day.  It’s all down to the Goddess.”

“Then I hope the changes I’ve made since then have pleased Her,” Gwen murmurs, and slowly rubs her stomach.

Merlin smiles.  “I don’t know much about pleasing the Goddess,” he assures her, “but I think allowing magic back in Camelot is pretty much the best thing you could have done.”

***

When Queen Annis arrives a week later, Guinevere still hasn’t made an announcement or given the news to anyone but her maid.  They welcome the party from Caerleon with a feast, and if Annis is surprised to find Merlin at Guinevere’s right hand as Court Sorcerer, her face betrays no sign.  She only leans in close as he greets her and murmurs “so you can do more than just juggle eggs?”

Merlin flushes, but lets her see the glow of his eyes; he conjures an egg behind his back and presents it to her with a flourish, and she laughs and claps him on the shoulder.

He and Annis flank Gwen at the high table for the meal, and though it isn’t his first feast as Court Sorcerer, Merlin still feels strange actually sitting at the table instead of hovering behind with a jug of wine in hand.  It’s easiest to quietly eat, nod politely at the right moments, and just take in the conversation around him.

“I was very sorry to hear about your husband,” Annis says to Gwen when the initial pleasantries are over with.  “Though from what I’ve heard, you have done admirably thus far in succeeding him.”

Gwen dips her head in thanks.  “I can only do my best to honor his memory and serve my people.  I’m very lucky to have good friends and wise counsel to support me.”

“And may I also give you some counsel?”

“Of course,” Gwen replies, “I would be very grateful for it.”

Annis leans closer.  With a softly muttered word, Merlin casts a privacy spell to make it more difficult for prying ears to overhear--excluding his own prying ears, of course.  

“Allies are everything,” Annis says.  “You are young, and you have, gods willing, a long reign ahead of you.  You’ve already shown your willingness to make radical change, to move forward rather than be dragged down by tradition.”  Gwen nods in acknowledgement, and Annis continues.  “Uther and Arthur treated with many of the neighboring kings, all of them old men, set in their ways.  I know what stubborn old men are like--I was married to one.  I would suggest,” she says, mild expression going suddenly cunning, “that you reach out to their daughters.  Three of your neighbors will have young queens when their old kings die.  They will be the future, as you are the future of Camelot.”

Guinevere, of course, is more cunning than she seems as well.  She calmly slices a piece of meat on her plate to keep the appearance of light discourse, but her glance is intent.  “That thought has crossed my mind.  You think it a practical course of action, then?” 

Annis nods. “Consider inviting them to visit when you take to your chamber--a perfect excuse to interact away from the company of men.”

Merlin does a double take, forgetting all about subtly listening in and staring at Annis in open surprise.  Gwen’s hands momentarily stutter, cutlery scraping.  Annis looks between them and slowly nods.  “I see.  It’s still meant to be a secret, then.  You won’t be able to keep it that way much longer.”

“Is it truly that obvious?” Gwen asks faintly, and Annis chuckles.

“Not to anyone who’s never been through it herself.  But the rumors will start soon, no matter how well you hide the symptoms.  Does your physician know?”

Gwen glances toward Gaius, who is watching them with a conspicuously placid expression.  “Yes,” she replies, turning her attention back to her food.  “He tells me all is well.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Annis replies with warmth.  

At last a smile blossoms on Gwen’s face, small and hopeful as the first shy bloom of spring.  “I will inform the Council at tomorrow’s meeting.”

“Then I shall be in attendance as well, and we may reaffirm the treaty between our lands in light of the happy news.”

Soon the conversation turns back to more mundane topics, and Merlin releases the privacy spell.  He watches Gwen as the evening rolls on, trying to see what Annis apparently spotted right away.  Perhaps her face is a little bit rounder, her bodice filled out a little more than it used to be.  What he notices most is a slow easing of the tension in her shoulders and the lines in her brow and beside her eyes.  He hadn’t realized before just how tense she’s been--Merlin’s been relying on her to be steady and strong, to support him, and neglected to offer support in return.  Now, in casual conversation with Annis, he can see something softening in her, and it’s wonderful, and he wants to see more of it.

At the end of the evening he bids both queens goodnight, and walks the quiet halls home with Gaius.

“Gwen seemed more like her old self tonight,” he says, and Gaius glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

“She did indeed.”

Merlin lets a long silence pass before he speaks again.  “I don’t think I’ve been as good a friend to her as she’s been to me.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Gaius sighs, wrapping an arm around Merlin’s shoulders as they walk.  “Everyone deals with grief in their own way.  Guinevere has discovered how isolating the Crown can be; I watched Uther go through it, and Arthur as well.  Her family is gone, and she must now be the matriarch, if you will, of the entire kingdom.  Annis is older, more experienced; whether she’s conscious of it or not, Gwen can let down her guard just a bit with her.”  Gaius gives Merlin a squeeze and a pat.  “Believe me, my boy.  The young will always turn to the old for safety and comfort, it’s human nature.  It’s not a failure of your friendship, just part of the difficulty of growing up.”

“Arthur was so stubborn about things like that, wouldn’t let anyone help him,” Merlin says, leaning a bit into Gaius’ side.  “Gwen isn’t  _ nearly _ as boneheaded, and I want to make sure she has the support she needs.”

“Then I think you’re being a very good friend to her already.”

“I guess.”

When they reach their hall, Gaius gives him a final pat and turns toward his chambers.

“I was thinking,” Merlin calls after him, and Gaius turns to look at him inquiringly.  “I was thinking I might write to my mother.  Ask her if she’d like to visit.”

Gaius smiles.  “That sounds like an excellent idea.  In fact, I was thinking of writing a letter myself.”

“To my mother?”

The physician’s smile curves into something more secretive.  “No...someone else whose presence might be appreciated.”

Merlin knows all of Gaius’ expressions by now, and this one says he’s quite pleased with himself.  Merlin just shakes his head.  “All right, have your mystery.  I’ll find out soon enough, I suppose.”

Gaius just laughs.


	13. The Queen's Lying-In

The news of the royal babe spreads faster than a wildfire from the moment the announcement is made; when Gaius makes his rounds only hours later, the castle and the Lower Town are buzzing with chatter.  In the days that follow, he’s handed so many good luck tokens and gifts of food to pass on to the Queen, he’s forced to enlist one of the squires to follow him about with a basket to carry it all.

Council meetings become entirely taken up by discussions, preparations, and the inevitable arguments.  Annis attends every meeting at Guinevere’s invitation, the cool-headed voice of female experience at a table that remains predominantly male, and Gwen’s mood lifts day by day with the older queen’s support.  

Then a servant summons Gaius to Annis’ chambers just after dawn.  He finds Guinevere and Merlin there as well, and the Caerleon servants in a flurry of activity.

“I’m afraid I must take my leave of Camelot immediately,” she says.  “A messenger arrived this morning, one of my sons has fallen ill.”

“I’m so sorry,” Gwen replies immediately, concern furrowing her brow.  “Of course you must return to him.  Is there anything I can do to assist?  Or anything Gaius can do?”

Annis’ mouth tightens slightly.  “That remains to be seen.  My physician suspects pox.”

Stillness falls over them, the sudden quiet of prey when a predator draws near.  For a moment, Gaius and Merlin just stare at Annis, and Gwen’s hands slide over her stomach.  In the background, the activity of the servants doesn’t stop.  

_ Packing, _ Gaius thinks, then  _ a messenger _ .   _ He must have passed through the Lower Town.  He would have spoken to the guards on duty at the gate, and perhaps also servants in the castle.   _

Annis must see the thoughts cross his face, cross all of their faces.  “The messenger was given strict instructions to speak to as few people as possible, and he had no contact with my son in Caerleon.  All I can do now is return home, and hope my physician is wrong.”

“Your physician--it’s still Rhiwallon?” Gaius asks, and Annis nods.  “We trained together, many years ago.  He’s an intelligent man, and an excellent healer.  He would have sent for you at the first suspicion.  If he’s quarantined your son, there’s hope you may prevent an outbreak.”

“I would also suggest you close the road behind us.”

_ Suspend trade...but Rhiwallon knows as well as I that the pox can lie low, spread before it’s begun to present.  If it’s already here, it will crop up in the Lower Town first.  I’ll have to set up a quarantine house, find volunteer carers who survived the outbreak thirty years ago.  Send some of the young servants out to restock--yarrow, calendula, witch hazel, honey--bring up vinegar from the kitchen stores-- _

Gwen nods.  “We’ll send extra supplies with you, just in case.  Merlin, could you--”

_ Guinevere will have to be carefully quarantined as well, but that won’t help us if she’s already infected and it hasn’t shown yet, she’ll need to be carefully examined-- _

“Yes, I’ll see to it right now!”  Merlin’s off like a flash, breaking the moment and bringing the world rushing back.

Gaius shakes himself, trying to reel his thoughts back from the worst case scenarios.  “I had some success with a special remedy during the last outbreak,” he offers.  “I’ll copy out the instructions for Rhiwallon.”

“I must speak to Sir Leon right away, he can arrange an escort for you and post guards along the route,” Gwen says, then clasps Annis’ hands in hers.  “But I’m sure your son will be all right.”

The Queen of Caerleon smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.  “I’m sure your babe will be, also.”

***

There is a deceptive calm before the storm hits; the running of the kingdom goes on around Gaius as he prepares and organizes, collects and concocts.  Gilli hastens to every task Gaius gives, clearly aware that this will be his first real test as a physician in training.  Guinevere agrees to keep away from the Lower Town, and Gonny moves into her mistress’ chambers to keep vigilant watch for any developing symptoms.  Merlin delves into the once-hidden magic books in the library, driving Geoffrey spare with his visits at all hours, searching for some magical protection or remedy.  A few tense days pass, and then a message arrives relayed through the road guards: the pox has hit Caerleon.

Within the hour, as if brought forth by this confirmation, the first cases in Camelot crop up--a shopkeeper with a fever, a kitchen girl made clumsy by muscle aches, Sir Percival’s squire with red blisters clustering on the tender inside of his arm.

Merlin bursts in while Gaius and Gilli are brewing tea and mixing potions, waving a book no bigger than his hand.  “I think I’ve got something!”

“Bring it here, then.”  Merlin holds the book a bit insultingly close to Gaius’ face, so he can see the cover as he stirs.  “A treatise on medicinal magic...Galen?  I didn’t know any of Galen’s writings on magic survived, where did you find this?”

“There was this box full of decaying books, it honestly looked like it hadn’t been opened since the Romans left--but look at this, a spell to speed healing, and a shield against infection!”  Merlin thumbs the book open, shaking it as though that will help emphasize his discovery.  “I’m going to test it out on your patients!”

“Then for goodness’ sake, stop shaking it in my face and start memorizing it!”

***

Merlin casts the infection shield on himself first, then Gilli, then offers to Gaius with a hand extended; Gaius shakes his head.  “Don’t waste your energy on me, my boy, I built up an immunity the hard way.”

He relents with a sympathetic wince.  “Right.”

“Gilli, keep brewing, put a little magic into everything if you can.”

“Yes sir,” Gilli replies, already bent back over a mortar and pestle.

“Come along, Merlin.”  Gaius chivvies him out the door.  “Time is of the essence.”

“Right!”

They spend the day dashing from patient to patient, Gaius with tonics and salves, Merlin with healing spells for the ill and shield spells for their families; there’s no way to tell in the moment if any of the treatments are working, but at the very least, the spells do no harm.   

At last they make their way to the Queen’s chambers, where Gonny stands guard at the door.  The way she twists her hands together when she sees them makes Gaius’ heart sink into his stomach.

“She didn’t finish her dinner,” Gonny tells them, anxious, “and she looked a little flushed.  I said she ought to rest, I think she’s asleep.”

Merlin’s face goes pale.  “I should have tried the shield spell on Gwen first,” he breathes, “the testing be damned!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin.  If she’s ill now, even a shield spell this morning would have been too late,” Gaius reminds him.  “Focus on the healing spell now.  Ganieda, if anyone asks, the Queen is quarantined to protect her from infection.  We don’t want to start a panic.”

Gonny nods.  “Yes, sir.”  

“What about you?  Still feeling all right?” Merlin asks, and the girl nods again.

“So far.”

He extends a hand, eyes going gold, and murmurs the shield spell; Ganieda shivers as it settles over her.  “Thank you, Emrys.  And I’m sure you can heal her.”

Merlin smiles crookedly.  “Let’s hope so.”

Quietly they slip into the darkened room.  In the bed, Guinevere is asleep but seems restless, arm curved around the gentle bump of her belly.  There are red spots of fever on her cheeks.

Gaius lays his medicine bag open on the table, pulling out the vials he needs, but when he glances over, Merlin is still standing feet away from the bed, his face crumpling in on itself with fear.  “Merlin,” he says softly.  “Focus, now.  Just focus on what needs to be done.”

Merlin gives a shaky nod, and sits gingerly on the edge of the bed.  He places one hand between Gwen’s collarbones and the other beside her own hand on her stomach, and begins the spell.

***

Even with Merlin’s healing spell cast on her every day, it takes nearly a fortnight for Guinevere to be fully recovered.  It takes longer for disease to loosen its grip on the castle and the town.  Merlin runs himself ragged the first two days, casting spells on all and sundry until he can barely stand; Gonny takes one look at him, sits him down in a chair at Gwen’s bedside with admonishments to stay there and look after the Queen, then rides hell for leather out of the citadel.  She rides back in the next morning with Iseldir sharing her horse, and a cadre of Druids following on foot.  Merlin hands over the book of spells, relieved, and directs all of his attention to Gwen’s care while the Druids tend the rest.

Gaius, extremely grateful for the assistance, leaves Gilli to work with the Druids and takes a few hours’ rest.  When he wakes, he copies out the spells and send them by messenger to Caerleon.  Then he gathers fresh supplies and goes back to his rounds.

He returns to the Queen’s chambers every evening to bring fresh salves and herbs.  Some nights he finds Merlin asleep in a chair, or with his head in his arms on the edge of the bed.  Some nights they’re both awake, Gwen exhausted but lucid, Merlin looking paper-thin with worry he tries to hide.  Once they don’t notice him when he enters, and he hangs back a moment as they quietly talk.

“It’s moving,” Gwen says, “give me your hand.”  

There’s a rustle of movement, then Merlin’s soft laugh.  “Yes, hello in there.”

“I didn’t feel it move for days,” murmurs Gwen, strained.  “I thought it had died.  Then this afternoon…”

“It’s going to be fine,” Merlin says with conviction.  “You’re both going to be fine.”

“You can tell?  That it’s...all right?”

“Better than all right,” Merlin replies.  “It’s strong.  I can feel it...reaching out.”

Gwen’s voice goes low and quiet.  “With magic?”

“It’s not quite magic yet.  More like...a spark.”  Merlin pauses.  “It will have magic though, I’m almost certain now.”  He says it like an apology, ridiculous boy that he is, but Gwen clearly agrees with Gaius about this news.

“Merlin,” she admonishes.  “I think that’s wonderful.  You must promise me you’ll teach it.”

“I...I would be honored.”  Merlin replies, sounding overwhelmed.  There’s a pause, and a telltale sniffle; before Merlin can get onto another crying jag, Gaius clears his throat and steps the rest of the way into the room.   
  


***

In the end, there are only four fatalities.  The Queen, wan but upright, organizes a funeral in the courtyard.  Then she thanks the Druids publicly for their aid, and presses upon them all the food and supplies they will accept before they leave.  It’s yet another leap toward the assimilation of magic fully into life in Camelot, and Gaius observes with no small amount of pride.

He once thought he wouldn’t see the return of magic in his lifetime.  Uther was a strong man in personality and in body, and at least two decades younger than Gaius.  He indoctrinated his son with his hatred of magic, and as a boy, Arthur held his father’s word as absolute truth.  Gaius saved as many as he could, sacrificed his pride to retain a strategic position, and mostly gave up hope of ever being free.

Then Merlin crashed into his life with chaos and prophecy in his wake, and changed everything.  Like an animal after long hibernation, magic is waking up all over the kingdom.  Gaius can feel the change in the atmosphere, the balance of the world tipping back to where it was in his youth.  Even his own magic is stronger, invigorated, and he quietly makes use of it in his work and teaches his tactics to Gilli.  

Poor Merlin, of course, is still run ragged overseeing all of the growing pains of a Camelot with magic legalized and an heir imminent.  As Guinevere prepares for the birth, Merlin and Leon take on more and more of the daily running of the kingdom.  More and more, that includes seeing to the comfort and security of visitors.

Vivian of Sussex is the nearest and so the first to arrive.  She is quite changed from her previous visit, quiet and subdued.  Gaius can see it in Merlin’s face when he realizes that the love spell they successfully broke on Arthur has a hold on Vivian even now; Merlin treats her gently, solicitously, with a tangible air of guilt about him.  Things go cold between Merlin and Guinevere for some time after that, and there are a few quite startling explosions from the Court Sorcerer’s chambers, clearly Merlin trying to concoct a potion in place of finding the Princess’ true love.  Lady Vivian herself spends much of her time with the Queen, a smile brought to her face at last when Gwen invites her to feel the baby moving.

“Yesterday I found her down in the tombs,” Merlin confides one morning after Council, tired shadows beneath his eyes, “watching the sculptor working on that blasted effigy of Arthur.  I can’t believe I never thought about her end of the spell before.”

“You’ve had plenty of other important things to occupy your mind in the years since then,” Gaius offers, but can’t help the shaming slant to his eyebrow.  

Merlin seems to shrink a little.  “I’ll fix it,” he says for the hundredth time since Vivian’s arrival, and hurries off to his next task.

Gaius expects some awkwardness when Princess Mithian arrives, given how close she came to marrying Arthur and how close Arthur came to being killed when Morgana used Mithian to bait a trap.  Guinevere, however, proves herself the most generous of souls; she welcomes Mithian with a hunt before the usual feast, and the Princess returns smiling and triumphant with a four point buck and a group of alternately chagrined and awed knights in tow.  After that, Gaius spots her as often with Leon and Percival, headed to and from the training grounds or the woods or the Rising Sun, as with Guinevere and Vivian.

“I hear she can drink Leon under the table,” Merlin says one evening at dinner in Gaius’ chambers.  “I think he’s a bit sweet on her.”

“Don’t even think of involving yourself, Merlin,” Gaius warns, and Merlin raises his hands in earnest defense.

“I wasn’t!  I won’t!  No meddling, I promise!”  He proclaims it so innocently, Gaius believes he might even mean it.

Elena of Gawant arrives much changed as well, graceful and confident as she never could be when possessed by the Sidhe.  The intervening years have dulled neither her humor nor her spark, and her presence seems to brighten the castle immediately.  To everyone’s surprise, Vivian is the most affected, unfolding slowly from her depression like a flower tipping toward the sun.  They disappear on horseback for hours at a time, sometimes returning sedately and bearing blossoms in their hair and woven around their necks, sometimes laughing and windblown from outrunning their guards.  They even convince Merlin to ride out with them once in lieu of other protection, and after that the strange fumes and noises from Merlin’s chamber cease.  When Gaius inquires about it, Merlin flushes.  “I don’t think Lady Vivian will be needing a potion anymore.”

Other attendants continue to filter in; Gaius remembers the strange female politics of a royal birth, who is invited to join the Queen in her chamber by virtue of position, which midwives will have the honor.  It’s quite a lot of fuss to worry over for a woman about to go through a difficult and dangerous physical process, but Gwen is stubborn and determined and really a shockingly good politician.  Still, when Hunith walks into the courtyard bearing Merlin’s letter of invitation, Gwen waddles into her arms and immediately surrenders to maternal fussing.

Gaius waits anxiously for the result of his own letter.  He waits as the Queen’s chamber is scrubbed top to bottom and hung with tapestries to block out the windows.  He waits as Gonny stocks the room with charms and talismans for a safe and easy birth.  He waits as Gwen bullies and cajoles Merlin until he agrees that, in spite of the rules about men in the birthing chamber, he will come if she summons him.  He waits as the Queen meets with midwives from the Lower Town and nearby villages, hesitating over her choices.

At last, just days before the chamber doors will close on Gwen and her attendants, there is a soft knock at his door.  He hastens to open it, and Alice stands on the other side, loaded down with supply bags and wearing a warm, soft smile.  “Gaius,” she murmurs, and he just stares for a long moment, drinking her in.  Then he folds her small hands in his own and draws her inside.

***

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Merlin says, but it sounds suspiciously like a question.  He’s gripping Guinevere’s hands rather tightly, and she’s squeezing back hard enough to whiten her knuckles.  The princesses and other noble attendants are already settled inside; just Gwen, Gonny, Hunith and Alice remain clumped in the hallway outside the birthing chamber.

“Of course everything will be fine,” Hunith assures, patting their clasped hands.

Alice nods.  “The time will go faster than you think, you’ll see.”  

Gonny nods enthusiastically.  “And it’s not like we’re going far away.  We’ll still be in the castle.  And I’ll be here to pass messages back and forth.”

“Right,” Merlin says with a wobbly smile.  “I’ll send in a report every day.”

“As will I,” Leon offers, standing awkwardly with his hand on the pommel of his sword, as if there is an enemy he can triumph over.

“That will be lovely,” Gwen replies.  “I’ll send a message back every day too.  I mean, unless I’m indisposed.  But Gonny can pass along an update anyway.”

Merlin goes a little pale at that, and Gaius wraps an arm around his shoulder to try to draw him away.  “We’d best let you get settled, then.”

Merlin starts, and after another squeeze, he and Gwen’s hands slide apart.  “Right.  All right.  Um...good luck.”

Gwen’s mouth flickers into a smile.  “Thanks.  Don’t forget what you promised.”

“I won’t,” he answers solemnly.

Before they can retreat, Alice steps into Gaius’ space for a chaste kiss.  “I’ll see you soon, my dear.”

“Of course.”  Gaius tries valiantly to ignore Leon’s uncomfortable shifting and Merlin’s soft snort.  “Come along then, Merlin.  Leon, I believe there are prospective knights awaiting you on the training ground?”

“Yes, quite,” Leon stammers, gives a little bow in Gwen’s direction, and hurries off.

Hunith draws Gwen gently into the chamber as Gaius guides Merlin away, but Merlin cranes his neck to watch behind them until the doors creak shut.

“Focus now, Merlin.  You and Sir Leon have a kingdom to run.”

Merlin’s gulp is almost audible.  “Sure.  No problem.  If Arthur could do it, it can’t be that hard, right?”

With a laugh, Gaius squeezes Merlin’s shoulders.  “Just so, my boy.”

***

The hardest part for Merlin, it seems, is the waiting.  He and Leon are perfectly able to keep the kingdom running with the Council backing them, but even the increased workload isn’t enough to keep Merlin from brooding.  The whole citadel is tense with anticipation so thick it’s almost tangible, the sharp scent and prickle of the skin before a lightning strike.  Gonny acts as go-between with very little news on either side of the doors.  Twice she reports pains that later subside, and Merlin grows ever twitchier.

At last, in quiet hours before sunrise, Gaius is awoken by a frantic pounding on his door.  Before he can even sit up and clear his bleary eyes, Merlin bursts in, eyes wide and hair sticking up in every direction.  “Gonny just woke me!  It’s started!  Her waters have broken!”

Gaius just sighs, collapsing back into bed.  “I’m very glad to hear it, Merlin, but couldn’t that news have waited until morning?”

Merlin looks at him like he’s grown a second head.  “I thought you’d want to know!”

“Know what?  What’s going on?”  Gilli blinks blearily at them from his doorway, and Merlin throws up his hands.

“Gwen!   _ The baby! _ ”

“My dear boy,” Gaius says around a yawn.  “Go and get some sleep.  The babe won’t be born for hours yet.”

“ _ Hours? _ ” Merlin breathes, wringing his hands desperately.

“Sometimes more than a day,” Gaius confirms, giving his pillow a fluff.  Then, more gently in the face of Merlin’s obvious anxiety, “go back to sleep.  You’ll want to be rested and fresh for tomorrow.”

“Right…” Merlin murmurs.  “Sorry I woke you both.  Goodnight.”  

In the morning, Gaius finds him nodding off in the hallway outside the birthing chamber, folded awkwardly into a chair pulled from one of the nearby rooms.  He’s still there after Council, now tearing a hunk of bread into pieces and eating them almost mechanically.  “Merlin,” Gaius begins, thinking to tell him he doesn’t have to wait right here in the hall, or that he should eat something more substantial, or that there’s nothing to worry about.  

Those words fall away when Merlin looks up at him, eyes far away, and says “I can feel it.  It’s reaching for me.”

Gaius watches Merlin’s face flicker, fear and awe and sorrow and joy all together.  “The babe?”

“Yes.  It has magic, Gaius, powerful magic.  I can feel it from here.”

Before Gaius can summon up a response, the chamber door bursts open.  “Emrys!” Gonny cries.  “The Queen is calling for you!”

Merlin is up from his chair in a flash, then stops as though he’s stuck, frozen in panic.  Gonny huffs and grabs him by the wrist.  “Come  _ on! _ ” she demands, tugging him forward.  The door thuds shut behind them, leaving Gaius alone in the hall, at a loss.

Ygraine gave birth in the very same chambers; he remembers it like it was yesterday.  Uther pacing the hall, looking torn between trying to bring the babe forth faster by royal decree and vomiting in the nearest chamber pot.  The doors bursting open, Nimue calling for them; inside, a tiny, wrinkled Arthur wailing in his mother’s arms, all the color draining from Ygraine’s face even as they stood by.  A dark day, one of the darkest he’s ever known, a harbinger of pain and destruction to come.  But Arthur!  When nothing more could be done for the Queen, Arthur was passed into his arms, swaddled and screaming and so ferociously alive.  At last Uther held out his hands for his son, pale and red-eyed.  

_ “My son,” Uther murmured, and the tiny prince hiccuped into silence.  Slowly, his eyes blinked open, blue as the bluest sky, and Uther sucked in a shaky breath.  “He has your eyes, my love.” _

Gaius shakes himself out of the memory.  He eases himself down into the chair Merlin abandoned, and settles in to wait.

***

“ _ Gaius!” _ A whisper wakes him, and he looks up to see the door ajar and Merlin standing in the gap, a babe in his arms and a watery grin on his face as bright as morning.  “A girl,” he murmurs.

“Guinevere?”

“Fine,” Merlin says.  “Exhausted.”

The wash of relief leaves Gaius trembly enough to wait a moment before he rises to get a better look.  The babe--the princess--hasn’t even been swaddled or properly washed yet; the caul clings like a film to her head and one of her shoulders.  “A good omen,” Gaius says softly, and Merlin nods.

“That’s what Alice said.”

She has Arthur’s nose, that’s clear from the very first glance, but her eyes and the dark tint of her skin are Gwen’s.  Then she squirms in Merlin’s arms, stretching, and he sees it.  Her right arm, chubby and waving, five-fingered; her left too short, topped at the wrist with bumps that might have been knuckles.  “Ah.”  Gaius looks up to find Merlin watching him, a shadow of fierce protectiveness slipping across his face.  “A result of the pox infection.”

Merlin nods.  “Alice said that, too.”  

They both look back down at the babe, who continues to squirm, lips pursed.  “She’s hungry.”

“I’d better bring her back in.”

“Does she have a name yet?” Gaius asks, reaching to hold the door.

Merlin smiles, soft and radiant.  “Blasine.”


	14. The Port of Avalon VIII

Arthur sits on the endless steps of the Tower, head in his hands, slowly turning things over in his mind.  He’d never allowed himself to think about what it would really  _ mean _ if that years-ago vision of his mother was real.  It’s been a coal always burning low in his mind, too hot to touch but casting a glow over everything.  His mother’s slender body in his arms, her hands on his face.  Her words, his father’s betrayal.

Even now he’s not certain he believes that his father let her die knowingly.  In spite of his many and terrible faults, Uther was capable of love, and Arthur is sure he loved Ygraine.  Everything that came of her death, all of it speaks to Uther’s loss as much as his guilty conscience.  Nimue couldn’t have been entirely innocent either; he heard from his mother’s lips that she didn’t know a bargain had been struck, and he believes his father didn’t know the particular dangers of that bargain.  Nimue was the one to make it, make  _ him _ come alive in his mother’s womb--she, at least, must have understood what she was playing with.  Unless they were all of them stumbling forward blind, playing with life and death like an unknowing child plays with fire.

He thinks of Guinevere, and their quiet efforts toward children; he thinks of Merlin, the power at his command.  If Arthur had known all these years what Merlin could do, what might he have asked of him?  

Of course, what might have been doesn’t matter now.  Surely Guinevere will eventually take a new husband; perhaps with another man she will get with child, or they will take a ward for an heir.  There are some noble families that can claim blood relation to the Pendragon line, but the connection is so distant as to make little difference.  Even Leon is, technically, a far-removed cousin, and he would make a good match for her.

It’s a difficult and sobering thought, the world he knows going on without him.  But if everything he’s seen and heard so far is to be believed, there is some chance he’ll be in the world again someday, and whether that’s soon or not, he won’t get there by wallowing in the middle of the stairwell.  He hauls himself to his feet and continues upward.

Stepping through the next door is rather a shock.  As if his thoughts of his lost life were heard, he finds himself in the citadel, stepping into the banquet hall; it’s empty and dark, the tables set for a feast but swathed in disturbingly enormous spiderwebs.  Like the other places he’s visited in the Tower, it’s a scene he remembers; there in the center of the floor is the fallen chandelier, and beside it stands a gray and grizzled old woman.  

“Prince Arthur Pendragon,” she says, and it’s beginning to be disturbing how many people are glad to see him dead.

“It’s King Arthur now,” he replies absently, letting his mind take him back to that night and that feast to dredge up her name.  “Mary Collins, is that right?  You tried to kill me.  I keep running into people who tried to kill me.”

“I tried to avenge my  _ son _ .”  She hurls the words at him the way she once hurled a dagger, but she makes no other move toward him.  She only watches him, face twisted up in sorrow and anger, as he crosses slowly to the High Table and the chair Merlin pulled him out of to save his life.  

“My father had him executed,” Arthur remembers.  “For sorcery.”

Mary’s eyes bore into him.  “He got his gift from me.”

“What did he do with it?” Arthur asks cautiously.

“He was a chandler.  He made special candles, for some people, candles that never burned down.”  She scowls viciously.  “He sold them to the wrong customer.”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur offers, cautiously, though surely that can’t be enough.  “My father’s laws...some of them were unjust.”

“Sorry changes nothing.”  The old woman leans toward him, eyes burning.  “I wanted your father to suffer as I suffered.  But if you died as King, then he never knew the loss of you.”

She’s still made no aggressive move toward him, and Arthur allows himself to let his guard down just a fraction--enough to look down at the chair, and the dagger still embedded in it.  “It’s a pointless cycle, isn’t it?  Revenge.  My father died because I killed King Odin’s son.  I died because my father slaughtered his own subjects.  The magical people of Camelot died because my father and a sorceress made a bad bargain, and it cost my mother’s life.”

“My Tom was an innocent,” she says, and there’s pain in her voice, as fresh as if he’d died only hours ago instead of years.  Perhaps, for her, it had only been hours--time in this place is something Arthur doesn’t yet understand.

“He was,” Arthur agrees.  “So was the singer you killed, and the serving girl.  But your actions brought me the best friend I’ll ever have.  Maybe the best friend magic will ever have.  So…” he trails off, and the old woman’s been staring at him for so long now that it’s really beginning to be uncomfortable, “...there’s that.”

With shaky steps, Mary comes closer.  She leans against the table as though the fight has gone out of her, but it’s never left her eyes.  “That boy.  He slowed time, you know.  In front of Uther’s very eyes.  I’ve never felt power like that.  Was he executed as well?”

The thought sends a wash of sickly cold fear through Arthur.  He had a little time to think, as he was dying, about how many times Merlin must have brushed death.  It was terrifying to contemplate.  “No.  No, he’s still alive.”

“Is magic free, then?” the old woman asks breathlessly, leaning even closer.

Arthur shakes his head.  “Not when I died.  But...I think it will be.  Soon.”

“Then, as you say--that’s something.”  

To Arthur’s right, the door reappears.


	15. Heir to the Golden Age

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: there are character deaths in this chapter. You'll probably see them coming, so you can skip over if you need to.

__   


_537 AD_

_Dear Arthur,_

_A dragon told me that you’ll rise again, when Albion needs you the most.  I’m not sure what that means, specifically, but it’s backed up by Druid prophecy, so.  It’s what keeps me going, thinking that you are just too big a prat to let the world go on without you and someday you’ll get fed up and come back._

_I don’t know if you can see us from where you are, or if you know what’s happening.  Maybe you know that Gwen lifted the ban on magic, and made me her Court Sorcerer.  Maybe you know about the gift you left us before you died--she was just born three days ago.  Her name is Blasine.  (I think it’s kind of a stuffy name for a tiny baby, but Gwen says that somehow “Blasine” and “Elyan” come from the same root.  She seems to have given it a LOT of thought, so I’m just going to let that lie.)_

_Blasine and Gwen are still tucked away recovering, but I visit every day.  Apparently that’s not terribly proper, but I don’t care, and neither does Gwen.  You’d say I’m actually a giant girl and so I fit right in.  But if you could see Blasine, you wouldn’t be able to stay away either.  She’s perfect.  Sometimes I think she looks like Gwen, but sometimes she pulls a face that’s all you.  She has lots of dark curly hair, and she has one hand (Gaius says it’s because Gwen caught pox a few months back), and she has_ magic _.  She hasn’t used it yet as far as I’ve seen, but I can feel it.  It’s like...when you stand near a fire, you can feel the heat.  Except it isn’t heat.  I’ve never felt it quite that way on anyone else before--I think it’s because her power comes straight from the Goddess.  She also makes a lot of noise, and when she does, everyone comes running--obviously she gets that from you--but when she’s quiet she has a kind of thoughtfulness about her, like there’s more going on in her head than we can tell._

 _I wish you could see her, Arthur.  I wish you could hold her.  Every time I do, I can’t help but think how_ wrong _it is that you’re not here.  How stupid I was to ever take my eyes off of you in that battle.  Someday she’ll want to know what happened to her father, and I’ll have to tell her I’m the fool who let you die._

_I’ll make sure to tell her other things, too.  I want her to know you, and I want you to know her, so I’ll keep writing about her until you come back to see her for yourself.  Dollophead._

_Merlin_

 

The lying-in chambers are really an entire suite--there are as many rooms in this mostly-unused wing of the castle as in all the houses in Ealdor combined.  Enough to comfortably, if temporarily, house three princesses, two noblewomen from court (both named Elaine), Hunith, Alice, Ganieda, and of course a spacious pair of rooms for the Queen and the baby.  

The Queen’s bedroom, of course, sees the most activity.  None of them can resist Blasine, tiny and sweet as she is, and Gwen stays abed while her body heals.  It’s a joyous, intimate atmosphere, filled very quickly with stories and anecdotes, cooing and laughter, even bits and pieces of politics.  To Hunith, it seems about as different from Merlin’s birth as anything could be--except for the still moments in between distractions, when Gwen holds Blasine to her chest and her face betrays a lingering sorrow.  Those moments, Hunith understands.

She’s sitting up with Gwen in the middle of the night, helping her with one of Blasine’s frequent feedings; the candles are low, the chambers are quiet, and the entire castle around them seems asleep.  Gwen has shadows under her eyes, but she smiles softly down at the baby as she nurses.  “Are all babies so focused?” she asks quietly, stroking a finger over Blasine’s head.  “I don’t really remember my brother as an infant.”

Hunith smiles and shakes her head.  “Not all babies, but most.  They have strong instincts.  Merlin was like Blasine--a team of oxen couldn’t tear him away from a feed.”

Gwen laughs softly.  “Yes, that’s how it feels.  I suppose it’s better than the alternative.”

“Yes.  Gaius told me that Arthur was a fussy infant, and went through a host of wet nurses.”

“How awful it must have been for Ygraine,” Gwen replies, a murmur soft as a breath, “to hold her baby and know she was leaving him behind.  At least Arthur didn’t know what he was going to miss.”

Hunith slides closer to cover Gwen’s hand with her own.  “Merlin’s father didn’t know either, when he left.  I’m still not sure if that was better.  But we go on as best we can, either way.  Blasine will grow up surrounded by people who love her--there can be nothing better for a child than that.”

Gwen nods; there is still loneliness in her eyes, a certain longing, but strength and joy lie behind it.

Merlin visits in the morning, as he has every day since the birth; he holds Blasine like the most precious treasure, walking her up and down the room, grown into the breadth of his shoulders now with an innocent resting her head upon them.  Hunith watches him with a glow of pride for her besotted son, and watches Gwen’s face lighten little by little.

***

_543 AD_

_Arthur,_

_It’s Beltane today.  Last night we lit the fires and stayed up all night; we had one in the courtyard, and there were more outside the walls.  I’ll admit, I had a bit to drink, but Gaius set me right.  He didn’t even give me the eyebrow!  I guess because he knew what we were going to be up to this morning._

_Blasine’s magic grows every day.  I’m teaching her as best I can, and everyone else helps; Gaius, and Alice, and Gonny a little too.  Still, even with all the magic users in the castle pitching in, there’s so much we don’t know._

_Alice says in the time before the Purge, Blasine would surely have been chosen for the priesthood and trained on the Isle of the Blessed.  She said the Priestesses weren’t all as crazy as the ones we’ve known, that they served the Goddess and preserved balance, and those seem like good things to me._

_The High Priestesses are dead now, and their knowledge is all but lost, another casualty of Uther’s reign.  It just seems awful, the way it’s still awful that you’re not here.  Blasine is six years old, and she has your heart and Gwen’s mind, and she’s so full of magic.  I want her to have everything she could have had when magic thrived._

_Gwen and I discussed it.  Argued about it, really.  In the end, we agreed.  This morning we rode out with Blasine and the Horn of Cathbhadh to the Great Stones, in the hope of speaking to Morgana._

_I don’t know if you’ve seen her in the afterlife, but Gwen said she’s quieter, less angry.  She must be, or she wouldn’t have agreed to what we asked.  She did, though.  Every year at Beltane, we’ll bring Blasine to the Stones, and she’ll have a lesson with Morgana.  Blasine will be a High Priestess, and she can pass those mysteries on to others, and a little bit of this land’s heritage will be regained._

_Everyone says we’re at the start of a Golden Age.  It won’t ever be that for me, not without you, but the world is certainly looking up._

_Merlin_

 

They wait until Beltane, to do the thing properly.  Guinevere, Merlin, Percival, Gonny, and little Blasine set out at dawn, after the bonfires have all gone to ash.  The morning is chill, but the scent of woodsmoke and flowers permeates the air, heralding spring.  The open meadows surrounding the Stones are bursting with early wildflowers, and Merlin names each one for Blasine--sorrel, milkwort, trefoil, lady’s mantle--and tells her their uses.  She listens quietly as they ride, she and Merlin astride old Cora, Guinevere beside them, Percival and Gonny bringing up the rear.  Gwen can see the child isn’t absorbing much, and knows Merlin sees it too; she’s overtired from the night’s festivities and nervous about what’s to come.  Gwen is nervous too, truth be told, but she and Merlin agree--it must be done.

When they reach the Stones, Merlin opens his pack and pulls out a wrapped bundle, crouching down to present it to Blasine.  She looks at it, then at his face, then back at the bundle.  She unwraps it carefully.

“This is the Horn of Cathbahd,” he tells her.  “When you and your mother reach the center of the circle, you must blow it, and think hard about who it is you wish to see.  Can you do that?”

“Yes, Uncle,” she answers gravely as she takes the horn, and the solemn expression on her round little face makes him grin.  He kisses her freckled nose to make her smile.

Beside them, Gwen takes a deep, cleansing breath and holds out a hand.  “Come on, Blasine.  Let’s get this over with.”

Merlin trails them to the edge of the circle, then stands back to watch.  Gwen leads Blasine inside, back straight and tense, fingers closed lightly around the stump of her upraised arm.  For a child so young, Blasine manages a very clear, sustained note on the horn; the air around them flares with light, and as they walk toward it, the world disappears.

They step into a blue-lit space, blurred and intangible as though filled with fog.  Ahead of them a figure emerges, slowly solidifies, slender and dark.

Gwen grip convulses on Blasine’s arm.  “Morgana?”

The figure resolves, and the sorceress stands before them, hair wild and clad in black as she was on the day she died.  “Gwen,” she says, very softly, and then looks down at the child.  “Blasine.  You’ve your father’s nose.”

Blasine giggles, breaking the tense moment.  “That’s what Uncle Merlin says!” she declares, and this seems to be enough to endear Morgana to her.

If Gwen wasn’t absolutely terrified, she might laugh at the disdainful expression on Morgana’s face.  

“Does he?  I suppose he’s the one who sent you here to call on me.”  She looks at Gwen, and there’s no softness at all in her eyes, but neither is it quite the look of hatred she remembers.  It is, she supposes, a place to begin.

Blasine, unafraid, comes directly to the point.  “He says you’ve got strong magic, and that you could teach me things.”  Morgana continues to watch Gwen, suspicious, until Blasine steps forward and speaks again.  “Aunt Morgana!  I want to be a High Priestess.”

Morgana’s eyes flick to the child, and she almost flinches back from her.  “Is that so.”

“Yes,” Blasine replies.  “I want to learn all about magic!”

“With supervision, of course,” Gwen adds carefully.

Morgana sneers, but her eyes are considering.  “And what would dear Arthur say?”

“He would want his daughter to know his sister,” Gwen replies, “and want you both to help repair some of the damage Uther wrought.”

A long, still moment passes; Gwen grips as tight as she dares to Blasine’s arm, and Blasine looks from her to Morgana and back.

Finally, Morgana quietly scoffs.  “I can’t believe that,” she says.  “But perhaps it’s enough that you believe it.”

“Then you’ll teach her?”

“What I can,” Morgana agrees, resigned.  “But if you stay here much longer you’ll get lost.  Next Beltane, if you still wish to, call on me again.”

“Thank you,” Gwen breathes as Morgana begins to fade.  Then she turns Blasine carefully away, and shepherds her out of the light.

***

_548 AD_

_Arthur,_

_I never meant this to be a journal--it was supposed to be about Blasine.  It will be again soon enough, I just_

_Gaius is gone.  Alice and Gilli and I made him comfortable, and Gwen joined us to sit with him, and Percival.  We sent a message to Leon, but he and Mithian have a baby on the way, I’m sure he’s well occupied at home in Nemeth.  Blasine was with us for a little while too, but she was scared and upset, so we let Gonny take her.  It’s so much harder to be the adult, to be the one who has to stay and be strong and handle everything._

_He looked very peaceful, at the end.  He couldn’t speak anymore, but I think he could hear us, and he was smiling.  I don’t think I’ll ever know that kind of peace._

_No one will say it, but it’s been more than a decade since you died, and in all that time I’m pretty sure I haven’t gotten any older.  Gwen’s got these nice little laugh lines around her eyes and little bits of gray coming into her hair.  Percival’s thickening up around the middle in spite of all the training, but I haven’t changed at all.  Maybe it’s something the Crystal Cave did to me, when I got my magic back that night before Camlann.  Maybe I’ll never age, until you come back, until you can live and age again._

_It sounds crazy when I write it down, but it still haunts me.  The years will march on, and everyone else will grow old; my mother, Gwen, even Blasine.  I think someday they’ll all leave me, and I’ll still be here, waiting._

_I miss him already._

 

They lay him to rest in the woods, beneath the favorite tree of his youth; it’s the same place he stood when he asked Alice to marry him, now almost forty years ago.  Merlin and Gilli build the cairn, and Hunith and Guinevere press the seeds of wildflowers into the soil all around.  Even little Blasine plants some, solemn in her distress; she’s old enough now to understand that she will never see Gaius again.  

Come next spring this spot will be a beautiful marker, though Alice isn’t certain she’ll get to see it.  It’s more likely she will be resting here too by then--she can feel her age deep into her bones now, in her viscera, like the draw of a warm bed after a long journey.  She doesn’t mind the feeling.  The young have the world well in hand.  Gilli has learned all of the most important lessons she and Gaius had to teach a young physician, and he’ll have their books, Gaius’ lifetime of research to fall back on.  Guinevere is strong as an oak, a solid, vibrant queen who listens to counsel but follows her own mind.  Merlin was beyond their teaching long ago, but the grief curling his shoulders isn’t that of a student without his mentor.  Rather a child bereft of his father, though for Merlin nothing is that simple.

Alice is glad beyond measure to have been welcomed into this family Gaius built around himself, and to have enjoyed it as long as she has.  She lets Hunith take her arm to lead her back toward the castle, lets Merlin coax all the old stories out of her until they’re laughing, lets Blasine climb into her lap for a hug before they leave her in peace in her chair.  

“I’ll see you again soon, my dear,” she murmurs, and Gilli pokes his head out of his room.

“Did you say something?”

“Nothing of importance.”

“All right,” he replies doubtfully.  “I’ll come get dinner started in a minute.”

“I’ll be here.”

***

_554 AD_

_Dear Arthur,_

_Some days this child is all you.  I went out to the training field this afternoon to work with my knights (the ones with magic, they call themselves Knights of the Order of Merlin, it’s extremely embarrassing) and I find Blasine stomping off in a huff with mud all along her back, and Percival behind her looking like he’d swallowed a lemon.  Turns out she told him off for holding back, so he let her have it and knocked her flat thirty seconds into the match.  You and I both know that thirty seconds against Percival is pretty damned impressive for a sixteen-year-old, even one with magic, but Blasine doesn’t see it that way.  She’s determined to be the best at everything._

_Still, she came back half an hour later, red in the face, and went back at her training like the dummies had said something rude about her mother.  She’s going to be a great ruler someday._

_Merlin_

 

Gwen is watching from her window, ignoring the uninviting pile of reports on her desk, when Percival finally gives in to Blasine’s demands.  She can see the shape of the fight change.  He wasn’t toying with her before, and he still isn’t now--but it’s obvious that everything before this was training, teaching, and this match is pure competition.

It’s over very quickly.  Blasine is fast and sharp, but she hasn’t the experience to make a real challenge, nor the strength to simply muscle it out.  Percival sees his opening and takes it, giving no quarter.  Gwen doesn’t need to see Blasine’s face to know that she’s furious and humiliated; it’s clear in her posture as she scrambles to her feet and stalks away, and more than that, Gwen knows her daughter.

When Blasine storms through the doors of her chamber, Gwen is already there awaiting her, and this brings her up short.  “Mother,” she chokes out, then rips her glove off with her teeth and hurls it onto the table.  “You saw.”

“Yes,” Gwen agrees, sitting lightly on the end of Blasine’s bed and watching her as she starts to pace.

“He’s been going _easy_ on me!”

“He’s been _training_ you,” Gwen corrects, and Blasine kicks a chair as she passes it.  Her magic is whirling up in gusts around her, making the air crackle.

“I don’t need to be coddled.  I’m just as able as any man on that field, just as able as any person with two damn hands!”

“As any person with two hands who’s your own age, certainly.  You’re arguably the best of the knights in training.”

“Exactly!” Blasine shouts, and if she wasn’t so clearly hurting beneath the bluster, Gwen might laugh.

“Then what are you so upset about?”  Blasine whirls, mouth flapping for a moment as she searches for a retort, then she throws herself facedown on the bed and screams her frustration into a pillow.  Gwen does allow herself a smile at that, and pats Blasine’s calf.  “Percival is the best knight in the kingdom.  There’s no shame in losing to him, nor in letting him guide your training at his discretion.  Only in treating him so poorly as you’ve done today.”

Blasine pounds the mattress with a fist, her voice muffled in the bedding.  “Why do you always have to be so _reasonable_ about everything?  Merlin says it’s healthy to express my anger instead of bottling it up.”

“Merlin knows how much like your father you are,” Gwen murmurs.  “He didn’t like to feel he was being coddled, either.  He always had to prove himself.  He caught Leon letting him win a practice joust once, you know.”

Blasine is tense as a bowstring for a long moment; then she sighs noisily, flopping onto her side.  “What did he do?”

“Oh, he convinced Merlin and I to help him enter a tournament in disguise, and was nearly killed by an assassin.  Also he promised to cook me a chicken dinner as thanks, but blatantly cheated.”

Blasine snorts.  “He won the tournament though, right?”

Gwen squeezes Blasine’s leg.  “Yes, he did.”

“You see?” the girl says, plaintive, and Gwen chuckles.

“Blasine, he was four years older than you are now.  When your father was sixteen, he was a bully and had terrible spots, and he couldn’t have taken a full-fledged knight in a match, either.”

Silence falls, more comfortable than before; Blasine’s magic isn’t blowing about, and the tenseness of her limbs has settled.  At last she twists a little to look at Gwen.  “What happened with the chicken dinner?”

“He made Merlin bring food from the kitchens and pretended he’d cooked it himself.  We had it out about that.”

“I bet,” Blasine agrees with a hint of a smile.

Gwen grins.  “Then the next morning, he kissed me for the first time.”

“ _Mother!!_ ” Blasine shrieks, shoving her face back into the pillows.  “ _Disgusting!_ ”

***

_559 AD_

_Clotpole,_

_Your daughter came of age today.  Can you believe that?  Tourney champion, Priestess-in-training, and now Crown Princess._

_After the ceremony this afternoon I took her to the Crystal Cave.  She’s been asking about it for years, but the crystals are dangerous, so I never agreed before.  She’s persuasive though--and if I hadn’t taken her, she’d have gone by herself eventually.  Anyway, we took a ride out there, and you should have seen her.  Never has anyone been so delighted to travel into the Valley of the Fallen Kings.  It’s not the bandit haven it used to be, but it’s not the most relaxing journey, either._

_I brought her into the cave, and I could see right away she could feel the power there.  Remember when I told you about feeling the world vibrating?  The Cave is like that, too, and Blasine caught on to it immediately.  I told her about how I’d seen snatches of the future there, and what a fiasco that turned into, and I think she took my warning to heart.  Then she touched a crystal and stared into it for a few seconds, and then she passed out and scared me to death.  She seemed all right when she woke up, but she wouldn’t tell me what she’d seen--just promised she wouldn’t do anything to change it._

_I guess I’m the last person who should be guilting other people for keeping secrets, huh?_

_Merlin_

 

She doesn’t have words to explain what she sees, not exactly.  She sees a room that is not quite a room, like a very small cloister, open to the air.  In the room there is a light that pulses like a living thing, with tendrils shooting out; it flares and dims in a rhythm that makes her aware of the pounding of her own heart.  In the room with the light, washed pale by its glow, she sees her mother.  Not her mother as she looks now, but as she may look years from now--hair all shot through with gray, her skin lined like an old parchment, but still her mother and still beautiful.  There is a man there with her, tall and tanned and dark of hair, resplendent in the armor and red cape of Camelot.  He embraces her; they seem to speak, and then, to Blasine’s surprise, they kiss.  From within the knight’s embrace Blasine’s mother reaches out a hand, trails her fingers along a glowing strand.  The light in the room grows brighter and brighter, until everything is obscured, but Blasine can’t close her eyes.

When it fades, there are a different woman and man in the room.  He is also a young knight, broad-shouldered and golden-haired; she too has the bearing of a queen, but fair where Guinevere is dark.  She holds the knight as though he is a child, cradling his head, and then she takes him by the arm and they circumnavigate the room.  There is something about them Blasine can’t place, something that tugs deep down in her gut, but the light flares and hides them again before she can make sense of it.

The third time, there is another knight in the room.  He is small and dark, darker than her mother, and his hair is close-cropped.  He has eyes like Guinevere’s, keen and kind; when his gaze meets her own, his smile is bright with welcome.

“Blasine.”

She wakes in Merlin’s arms, his anxious face hovering over her.

***

_566 AD_

_Dear Arthur,_

_Gwen sent Blasine and I to Nemeth for a week for Ethelbert’s wedding.  I hadn’t seen him in at least a decade, I couldn’t believe how he’d shot up!  Taller than Leon now, but he has the same curly hair.  There’s definitely a lot of Mithian about his eyes._

_He’s nice enough, polite and softspoken, and his bride is a charming Frankish girl.  She’s a Christian, so one of their priests was in attendance.  The ceremony seemed to be in their tradition, as well; Leon said later that Ethelbert was in the midst of converting.  The things people do for love!  Blasine did not seem terribly impressed; she doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body, at least not as far as I’ve seen.  If there are things I haven’t seen, well, that’s probably for the best._

_Merlin_

 

Mithian watches their guests from Camelot in bemused delight.  Merlin is as he ever was, affable, kind, protective, and the last twenty years only seem to have touched his eyes.  He does magic tricks for children, helps passing servants with their work, and chats easily with the most educated old nobles of Nemeth’s Court.  Blasine, on the other hand, has the unique beauty of her mother and the brash charm of her father; all the unmarried royalty of the neighboring kingdoms are sniffing around her with their hopes on their sleeves, and she laughs them all away almost as if she can’t tell what they’re after.

The wedding is all ceremony, pomp and unfamiliar religious spectacle; there is a Christian priest, and quite a lot of Latin.  It all seems a little bit unromantic to Mithian, but her son is devoted, and her son’s new wife is lovely enough to warrant that devotion.  She and Leon oversee and support and encourage, and Ethelbert happily does precisely what he wants.

The wedding feast, however, is another matter entirely.  It’s loud and bright and festive, bursting with guests, the tables groaning under the weight of their bounty.  There are minstrels, who give way to speeches, which go quiet when Merlin stands up on a table, his voice echoing over the room.

“My Lords and Ladies!  Allow me to present a gift from Queen Guinevere of Camelot, who sends her warmest congratulations!”  He reaches down and tugs Blasine up onto the table with him; they grin at each other, eyes beginning to glow, and a moment later bursts of colored light explode all around the room.  Amid the gasps and delighted cries of the guests, the light blooms swirl and coalesce into shapes--one, Nemeth’s unicorn rampant in deep green and black, the other Camelot’s dragon, shining red and gold.  Together these creatures caper about the room, larger than life, shedding sparkling bits of magic that rain down over the guests.  Beside her Leon laughs and claps, delighted, and she can see Ethelbert’s eyes shining at the wonder of the display.  Bertha leans into his chest, for a moment seeming frightened, but then smaller puffs of blue and gold magic pop across the ceiling, shimmering into the fleur-de-lys shapes of her family’s coat of arms.  At this, with Ethelbert’s arm around her shoulders, the bride slowly begins to smile.

***

_579 AD_

_Arthur,_

_Little Ethelwald arrived today--Ethelbert’s second son, he’s to foster here.  He’s an energetic little thing, already squiring on out on the training field within hours of riding into the citadel.  Blasine hasn’t said anything definite to me, but I suspect she’s looking to make him her heir one day.  It’s a smart option--his older brother will inherit the throne of Nemeth after Ethelbert, and Blasine has little interest in marrying, politically or otherwise.  Sometimes I think it’s awful that Blasine is the last of your line, and the last of Gwen’s.  Sometimes I think it’s better that way, because even if there were more, I’d outlive them all._

_Merlin_  


Grandfather told Ethelwald many things about Camelot.  That he would have friends there he could talk to if he ever felt alone or overwhelmed, and that the knights there were very skilled and would train him well, and that he should be respectful and treat honorably everyone he meets there.  Grandfather neglected to mention that Camelot had a _dragon_.

He spots it on his very first day.  His retinue of guards have been given space in the barracks to rest, but Ethelwald isn’t the least bit tired--the afternoon sun is still in the sky, and Camelot’s knights are on the training field.  A giant old knight called Sir Percival takes him to the field’s edge and names each knight for him: Baudwin, Enid, Caradoc, Ragnell, Lamorak, Bors, on and on.  At the center of it all is Princess Blasine, fierce and shining, and when she spots them she sheathes her sword and strides over.

“Eager to get started?” she asks him without preamble, a grin lighting up her face.  Up close she’s more imposing than he thought, and he squares up his shoulders.  

“Yes, My Lady.”

Her grin widens, and she claps him on the back.  “Excellent.  See that spindly girl over to the side there?  That’s Rowan.  She’s our best squire, she’ll show you the ropes.”

Ethelwald finds the girl in question and nods.  “Yes, My Lady.”

“Enough of that, call me Blasine,” comes the reply, and then the Princess nudges him off in Rowan’s direction.  “Go on then, and tell her we’ll want the quarterstaffs next.”

“Right away!”

The afternoon is hot, and weapons are heavy, though no heavier here than they are at home; still, as an hour slowly trickles into two, Ethelwald starts to feel the toll of a very long day.  Then, when he pauses by the water bucket for a rest and a drink, he sees it--a flash of movement reflected in the water.  He looks up, and there above him soars a _dragon_ , at least three times the size of a horse and white as a snowy winter.  He’s so shocked he just freezes; around him the knights’ training goes on, and in the sky the dragon stretches out its legs and touches down on one of the turrets.  Ethelwald watches it flap and shift, circling like a dog before it seems to settle.

“What’s this?  Standing about like a wart on a toad?”

Ethelwald jerks back to himself, turning to find Princess Blasine grinning at him again.  “My Lady!  There’s a dragon!”

Blasine shields her eyes, looking up.  “So there is!  That’s Aithusa.”  He must look as poleaxed and awed as he feels, because when Blasine looks back at him she chuckles.  “Come on, let’s go up to the aerie and welcome her back.”

“ _Really?_  But, training--”

“Done for the day,” she assures him, starting off toward the castle.  Ethelwald glances at the field, where the other squires are gathering up weapons and resetting targets, and then back at the Princess, already far ahead of him.  “Keep up, little wart!” she calls back over her shoulder.

“Coming!”

***

_585 AD_

_Arthur_

_The Queen is dead.  Long live the Queen._

_I miss you._

_Merlin_  


“Merlin,” she says, a breath of a whisper in the quiet of the night.  The chamber is still; Ganieda is slumped in a chair at the bedside, Blasine’s head is pillowed on the mattress, and neither of them wake.  Merlin leans in close, takes Gwen’s searching hand in his own.

“I’m here,” he murmurs.

The press of her fingers is light as a butterfly’s touch.  “I would have your oath.”

Merlin smiles, teases her.  “Any old oath, or did you have something particular in mind?”

She huffs, and when she continues her voice is slow and careful.  “We spoke once about Arthur.  About the flame inside you.”

“I remember,” he says.  That conversation has never left him, though they never mentioned it to one another again.

“Swear that you will keep it alive.”  Her eyes fix on him, sparkling in the dim light, and he knows she understands, as much as either of them can, what she is asking.

He bends his head, presses her delicate hand to his cheek.  He cannot see how far this vow will take him; how far his own power extends.  He has not yet reached a limit.

“Merlin,” she prods, and after fifty years of that tone, he’s helpless to resist her.  He gathers a bit of magic in his chest, in his throat; he lets it seep into his eyes.

“ _I give you my oath_ ,” he says, and it’s as solemn as he can make it.  She smiles.  Her breath is slow, so shallow and quiet; Merlin’s seen enough death to sense it in the room.  He leans in close and kisses her cheek.  “Tell everyone there I said hello.”

She doesn’t speak again; by morning, Guinevere is gone.

***

_598 AD_

_Arthur,_

_The Priestesses say that the balance of the world is starting to shift.  I can feel it just a bit, the magic of the earth stiffening like an underused muscle.  It still rises to my call, but not the way it used to years ago.  Aithusa feels it too, I think.  She’s been restless, like she can’t quite get comfortable or settle anywhere, always flying off for weeks or months at a time.  Maybe it’s some sort of dragon puberty, but more likely it’s all connected to the abbeys and churches that have been popping up across Albion.  They’re even building one here, in the Lower Town.  An abbey full of Christian monks._

_Blasine gave them permission, of course, because she has a generous heart and wants Camelot to remain a place of freedom.  I want that too, of course I do, but I’ve heard the monks preaching.  Some of it I can get behind.  I’m all for taking care of the poor, and being kind to your neighbor, but they seem to take a very dim view of magic._

_I suppose all I can do is wait and watch, and hope that the tide doesn’t turn against us._

_Merlin_


	16. The Port of Avalon IX

It almost seems too easy when Arthur rounds the curve of the Tower again and finds himself at the top.  He stops, befuddled--and, if he’s honest, a little dizzy from the spirals--and stares at the door in front of him.  It’s absurdly plain, after all the effort he’s put into finding it, a simple wooden door sitting just barely crooked in its frame, but he can see light through the cracks.  There’s no latch or handle of any kind, so after a long moment spent just looking at it in confusion, Arthur steps up close and gives it a cautious push.

He’s immediately blinded; the light that seemed just curious from the outside is now painfully bright.  He brings a hand to his eyes and puts his back to the door, blinking frantically until his vision adjusts.  Slowly, the brightness coalesces into a sort of ball, pulsing with a steady heartbeat rhythm.  From this center, shimmering threads of light extend in all directions around the room, including onto him; when he reaches out his hand, they simply pass through, as if he is no more solid than the air.

It’s rather unsettling, so he turns his attention to the room itself, instead.  It’s an octagon, with eight open arched windows where the streaks of light escape; above, it rises into a vaulted spire ringed around with narrower openings.  When Arthur turns in a circle to take it all in, he finds that once again the door he entered through is gone; the tower is open to the balmy air on every side.  The sky beyond is dark, but he can hear the quiet lapping of the lake far below.

Ignoring the disturbing number of light-threads that pass through his body as he moves, he cautiously approaches the glowing center.  It gives off no heat, so he reaches slowly out.

“Careful, Arthur,” warns a quiet voice, and he snatches his hand back, whirling.

“Who’s there?”

“I am,” replies the voice, and a figure steps out from behind the glow.  Arthur peers at her, heart suddenly in his throat.

“Mother?”

“Arthur,” Ygraine says, and a moment later she has her arms tight around him.

***

For an endless, blissful stretch of stretch of time, his mother holds him.  She feels as she did in that brief vision years ago: small and delicate and fierce as a mother bird.  Then she draws away, holding him at arm’s length, smiling at him with tears in her eyes.  “My precious son.  I’ve been waiting for you.”

“How did you know I was coming?” he asks, his own tears threatening.  “What is this place?”

His mother squeezes his hands in both of hers.  “I was told, by the one who waited here for me when I arrived,” she replies.  “This is the center, Arthur.  The source of life and death.”

He looks from her to the pulsing glow and back.  “Really?”  

She smiles at the skepticism in his voice.  “Each one of these little threads is a life,” she says, gesturing to them.  They all pass through her hands, too, and when he glances behind her, through her body.  “And when each of them goes dark, that soul comes here to the Tower to make their final journey.”

Arthur swallows.  “And then?”

“And then they tarry here a while, to watch the world.  When they are ready to leave their lives behind, they cross through the Veil into the afterlife.”  

“Is that what you’ll do?” he asks, hands spasming tighter in hers, and she pulls him into her arms.

“Oh, Arthur.  Yes,” she murmurs, “that’s what I’ll do, when I’ve told you all you need to know.  But you are not to take that path.”

He buries his face in her hair; it smells, just faintly, of peach oil.  “Why not?” he asks quietly.

“Because the world will someday need you again.  But don’t worry,” she assures, pulling back again to take his face in her hands.  “I’ll show you how to pass your time.”

He huffs a laugh.  “As long as it’s not another round of awkward conversations and stair climbing.”

“I promise,” she replies with a grin.  Then she takes his hand, and leads him in a slow circle, orbiting the glow.  “You’ve seen that the lights pass through you, as if you weren’t there?”  Arthur nods.  “There will be one thread, just one, that you may touch.  This is a life tied to yours--family, a friend, a lover, even an enemy.  Someone whose path you will be able to see.”

“See how?  Visions?” he asks uncertainly.

“In a sense.  More like dreams.  When you are touching their thread, their life will be open to you.”

They continue circling the glow, falling into step with its pulsation.  “Who’s thread did you touch?”

“Nimue’s,” she answers sadly, and Arthur stops in his tracks.  

“Nimue.  The woman who let you  _ die _ ?”

Ygraine tugs him gently along.  “She was a dear friend, once.”

Something in her tone makes Arthur bite back the questions crowding his throat.  He’s been guessing all along what happened between his parents and Nimue; he can’t know, not without pressing the issue with his mother, but he tries to imagine it.  Perhaps Nimue was a friend as Merlin was, and simply made a terrible mistake.  It’s too strange to contemplate for long.  Instead, he laces his fingers with his mother’s and keeps walking.

They move in silence for long enough that he begins to get impatient, searching for what to say, when he’s suddenly caught on something thin and immovable and the world around him disappears.

He sees a road of strange, seamless stone with stripes of bright yellow.  A huge blue wagon roars by, loud and unnatural, and as it passes he sees an old man tromping along the roadside.  He’s a very familiar old man--Dragoon, the old sorcerer, wearing strange clothing and a bizarre hat.  Looking at him now, Arthur can see through the deception--the truth is in his eyes, blue like an overcast sky.  He pauses, just for a moment, seeming to bow under some terrible weight.  Then Arthur looks past him and sees the hill topped with a ruin, the lake around it gone, and understanding clicks into place with a shock of pain like the setting of a bone.

With a jolt he’s back at the top of the Tower, his mother’s hands on his arms to steady him.  “Arthur?”

“I guess I’ve found it,” he rasps.  

She peers up into his face.  “Who?”

Arthur closes his eyes.  “Merlin.”  Ygraine’s hands twitch on his arms, and he realizes that however Merlin came to kill Nimue, his mother must have seen it.  She doesn’t ask anything else, though, just holds on to him until he’s solid on his feet again and opens his eyes.

“It’s time for me to go,” she tells him quietly.  Beside them, the door has reappeared.

Arthur sucks in a shaky breath.  “I’m not ready.”

His mother just smiles, and pulls him down so she can kiss his forehead.  “You are.”

“Don’t leave,” he pleads, feeling shamefully childish, but unable keep from asking.  This place is too much, and his vision of Merlin too difficult to fully parse; he wants the comfort of her voice, of her hands, more powerfully now than he ever had growing up without her.

“I must.”  She presses his hands in hers a final time, then draws away.  “I love you, Arthur.”

“I love you too, Mother,” he chokes out.

Ygraine just smiles, slow and bright, then opens the door and steps through.  In the span of a heartbeat, both she and the door are gone, leaving Arthur alone with the brightly-throbbing filament that is Merlin’s life.


	17. The Fall of the House of Pendragon

**Part II**

 

**The Fall of the House of Pendragon**

 

She’s on the battlements when Merlin finds her.  It’s still early morning, and down in the Lower Town the bells of the new Christian abbey are ringing, calling the people to worship.  She can see them flowing from their houses and down the lane, their finest clothes on, their work set aside.

Merlin comes to her side, his Sidhe staff clicking along the stones.  He doesn’t speak, but she can guess what he’s thinking.  “There are even more today,” she says, and on the edge of her vision she sees him nod.

“The Old Religion is dying out,” he replies, and he sounds so _tired_.  Blasine hooks her arm through his.

“We can’t make anyone change what they believe.  We wanted a kingdom where everyone was free to worship as they wished.”

“I know,” Merlin bites out, “ _I_ know that.  I just wish _they_ did.”

Blasine turns sharply to look at him.  “Not again!”

He nods dismally.  “A little girl, this time.  She nearly drowned when the neighbor children decided to play ‘baptism.’  They didn’t intend to almost kill her, but…”

“But the monks have taught them that magic goes against their God,” she finishes.  

She looks back out over the citadel and the town.  At the well in the courtyard, a young novice is scrying in the water, gesturing animatedly; probably she’s speaking with another novice or a Priestess on the Isle of the Blessed.  Further off, on the training field, the Crown Prince is putting the knights through their paces.  Later Merlin will join them, taking those with magic aside to hone their abilities.  Ethelwald is not one of them--he has no magic of his own, though he’s learned how to put it to good use under his command.  

Blasine has never once regretted naming him heir apparent, but she worries all the same.  “Ethelwald often speaks of one of them, Brother Lawrence.  They seem to have become great friends.”

“I know.”

Turning fully toward him, Blasine crosses her arms and gives Merlin her best no-nonsense look.  “None of this is what’s worrying you, though.”

The corners of his mouth flicker up.  “Your father used to make that same face at me.”

“That’s why I do it.”

Merlin sighs.  “I’m worried about him.  About Avalon.  Magic fading naturally from the world is one thing--there’s too much magic centered there to ever fade.  But magic being chased out again?  Squashed down by new beliefs?  The balance will be disturbed.  If the Christians spread too close or too forcefully, the Sidhe will be angered, and they’re not the kind of creatures you want to make angry.  Not to mention the White Goddess.  And if Avalon’s endangered--”

“--then so is my father,” she finishes.  She watches his eyes change, fear and determination and guilt in them even after all this time.  She’s known Merlin her entire life, during which time his face has never changed, never aged, and there are still things in his expression she can’t quite read.  She knows well, though, that on the subject of her father, she must tread gently.  “Merlin...how long are you going to wait for him?  Kilgharrah could have been wrong.”

“I’ll wait as long as it takes,” he says tightly.  “Aithusa agrees.  She can’t see what’s to come as clearly as Kilgharrah did, but all dragons have some foresight.”

Blasine raises an eyebrow at his sharp tone.  “Does she have any idea what we should do about it, then?  We can’t stop the monks from preaching, not without starting a religious war.”

Merlin shakes his head.  “It doesn’t work like that, I don’t think.  She can’t control what she sees.”

“Like any seer,” Blasine sighs.  “Sometimes magic is so frustratingly imprecise.”

“I’ve only seen what I want to see once,” Merlin remarks, leaning onto the crenel of the wall with his elbows, “on the eve of Camlann.”

Blasine blinks at him.  “In the Crystal Cave.”

“Yes.”  When she doesn’t say anything, Merlin glances over at her.  He must see her plan in her face, because he shakes his head.  “Not a good idea.”

“Merlin, you brought me there yourself when I came of age, you didn’t seem to think it was so terrible then.”

He scowls.  “And remember how I let you touch the crystals and you _passed out_ and wouldn’t tell me what you’d seen?”

“I didn’t pass out because I saw some horrible future,” she argues, exasperated.  “I was too nervous to eat anything beforehand and got overwhelmed.  Please, Merlin.”  She lays her stump against his arm, just the lightest point of connection.  “You’re not the only one who still cares about the fate of the Once and Future King, you know.”  His face crumples a little and she can’t stand to see that, so she tips her head back and puts on her bossiest tone.  “And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m the Queen.  I can do what I like.”

Merlin’s mouth trembles, then he puffs out a breath and hangs his head.  He covers her stump with his hand, rubbing this thumb against the lumps of her knuckles the way he used to when she was a child falling asleep in his lap at Council.  Then he looks back up at her, and she knows she’s won him over.  “I don’t know why anyone thought it would be a good idea for that cabbagehead to reproduce.”

Blasine smiles.  “Come along.  I’ll have our horses saddled, we’ll go right now.”   _Before you change your mind._

***

They ride through the Valley of the Fallen Kings in a silence thick with Merlin’s reluctance.  Blasine understands--she knows from his stories that this place is filled with memories he’d rather not revisit.  He came into the fullness of his magic in the Cave, for better or worse, and he has mostly avoided it ever since.  

On the other hand, Blasine can’t help but feel excited.  Her magic feels more alive inside the Cave than anywhere or anytime else, as though the world is a giant harp, and she one plucked string.  It’s been too long since she’s felt that connection, and she craves it now more than ever as a balm on her uncertainty.  

They pause at the cave mouth to dismount and disarm; in short order the horses are tethered and lipping at the grass, and Blasine’s sword propped up against the stones with Merlin’s staff.  Then Merlin reaches for her hand, leading her inside with slow, careful steps.  

It’s just as Blasine remembers it.  The deeper they travel, the more she can feel the magic of the place throbbing in the air around her, under her feet.  Her own magic bubbles up to meet it in a hot giddy rush that makes her gasp.  It’s so much stronger here, so vibrant, that it brings home how faded the magic is everywhere else; she hasn’t felt this strong in decades.  Merlin glances back at her, but he must feel it too; he just squeezes her hand and continues on.  At last they enter the innermost cave, where glowing crystals jut out of every surface; the resonance is strongest here, and the temptation to just reach out and touch one of them is powerful.  Merlin keeps a tight hold of her hand and gives her a knowing look.  “I’ll do it.”

“Once again, you’re forgetting that I outrank you, and you’re not my babysitter anymore.”  Blasine lets the pull of the crystals tug her nearer to one.  “We’ll look together.”

Merlin gives a cranky huff and follows.  It feels as though there ought to be ceremony to this, a process or a spell, but he just guides their joined hands to the crystal.  The moment their fingers touch the surface Blasine’s whole body jolts.  Their surroundings whirl away until the smooth heat of the crystal and Merlin’s fingers beside her own are her only points of awareness.  Then light explodes behind her eyes.

She and Merlin stand on the shore of the Lake of Avalon, Aithusa at their backs.  The earth rumbles beneath their feet, and the water boils; the air rings with their chanting.  There is a trickle of blood from Merlin’s nose.  Aithusa roars, and the world tilts.

She stands on the shore of the Lake of Avalon.  The island is just an island; no mist, no tower, no magic in it at all.

Two knights face each other on the tournament grounds.  One of them is Ethelwald, curls flying everywhere as he fights, grin lighting his face.  Upon his cloak and his shield, not the dragon sejant of the Pendragons, but a golden crucifix.

Ethelwald kneels at her feet, head bowed; she places the crown upon it.  Her own hand is wrinkled and knobbly, her fingers like roots.  Her chosen heir speaks his vows, rises as King of Camelot.  Merlin is not there.

Then Merlin _is_ there, gripping her shoulders to steady her, though he’s trembling himself.  “Blasine?  Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she murmurs, and slowly her eyes focus on him.  He’s breathing fast, and his face is set and hard.

“What did you see?”

“We...we will take the magic out of Albion,” she says slowly, trying to make sense of it.  “And I will be older and grayer, and give my crown up to Ethelwald, give Camelot up to Christian rule.”

Merlin rubs her arms soothingly.  “Yes.  I think I understand.”

“Is that what you saw?” she asks urgently.  “We’re going to destroy magic?”

He shakes his head.  “No, not destroy--hide.  We’re going to tuck it away where no one can touch it, where it will be safe.”

“But the balance--”

“We’ll make it work,” he says firmly.  “I can be the tether.  But…” Merlin pauses, biting his lip.  “It will be gone from here.  Everyone’s magic will be gone.”

To deny the world magic, even in order to protect it, seems momentarily too terrible to contemplate.  The magical knights, the young Priestesses she’s trained, every jester and healer and hedge witch will have their power taken away.   _Blasine’s_ power will be taken away.  And Merlin….   “What will happen to you?  Gaius used to say you were _made_ of magic.”

“I’ll anchor the spell to myself,” he replies.  “I can hold it until Arthur wakes.”

“Then...you’ll be the only sorcerer left.”

“Not forever.”  He squeezes her arms, giving her a pasted-on little smile.  “Just until it’s safe.  I think this is what we have to do.”  

There’s something else, though, in his eyes, in the way his shoulders are braced.  Something he knows she won’t like.  “What else did you see?”

Immediately his expression shutters.  “Nothing that matters.  I just...I have to protect Arthur.  It’s what I’m _for_.”  He says it with such utter conviction that she wants to cry; instead she just breathes out slow and knocks their foreheads together.

“All right.  If you’re sure this is the right course...then I’ll help you.”

***

They return home to make their plans.  Merlin consults every magic book in the library; Blasine rearranges her schedule, spends long hours training with the Order of Merlin or doing quiet little bits of magic, growing flowers and moving clouds about and making butterflies.  If their efforts succeed, she will never do magic again.  

Finally, he comes to wake her in the still hour before dawn.  “I’m ready,” he says solemnly, standing at the edge of her bed, and she nods.

“All right.  I’ll meet you on the South turret.”  

She dresses carefully, warm against the early hour and comfortably for their journey.  She hooks on her sword belt, feeling naked without it, and tucks the seal of her house into her pocket.  On one finger she wears her mother’s wedding ring, and on another, her father’s ring passed down from her grandmother.  Around her neck she hangs the weathered triangle of wood that once was the wing of a carved dragon, and with these tokens to strengthen her she slips through the quiet halls to the turret.

Merlin has already called Aithusa; her tail is swishing nervously back and forth across the stones.  Blasine leans into the dragon’s warm flank for a moment, and Aithusa trills softly in greeting.  Then Merlin climbs up onto her back, pulling Blasine up in front of him, and Aithusa launches herself into the air.

Blasine cranes her neck around to watch the castle grow smaller and smaller behind them.  She knows from Merlin’s stories that there is magic in its very foundation; will the castle still stand when the magic is taken away?  She has a sudden, terrible fantasy of the castle crumbling while everyone inside still sleeps.  Merlin must feel her stiffen, or perhaps he just hears her unguarded thought.

 _The castle will hold,_ he assures her.   _So will the wards on the borders, and the blessings on the fields.  Magic that’s been done won’t be undone, as long as I’m here to anchor it._

 _And what will happen to Aithusa?_ she thinks, suddenly ashamed it hadn’t yet occurred to her to ask.

 _Aithusa will be safe too,_ comes Merlin’s reply, and with it a surge of reassurance from the dragon, and a picture of her soaring over Avalon, dodging the glowing wisps of the Sidhe and dropping low to tease passing unicorns.  It’s enough to surprise a laugh out of her.

_All of the magical creatures will be safe.  Stop worrying, Blasine, I’ve thought everything through._

_Is that supposed to reassure me?_ she teases, but it does.  She’s always trusted Merlin--there’s no reason to stop now.

***

They stand, hands entwined, looking at the quiet lake and the island beyond.  Blasine thinks of everything Merlin’s told her about her father, how strong and brave he was, how stubborn, how beloved.  Then she closes her eyes and offers up a prayer to the Goddess that they are making the right choice; that by protecting magic, they are not somehow destroying the world.  She gets no answer, but perhaps silence is enough to express Her will.

What Merlin is thinking of she can’t know, but the sadness that has always clung to him seems heavier here, like a coat of mail.  After a long silence he holds up a scribbled-on parchment--the spell.  She reads it over, feeling rather out of her depth.  It’s like nothing she’s ever done before, and she’s the last High Priestess left.  “Will this work?”

Merlin shrugs.  “Won’t know ‘til we try.”  Then he tucks the parchment away and laces their fingers together.  Aithusa lumbers up behind them, breathing reassuring heat at their backs.  “Ready?”

“Ready.  See you on the other side.”

Merlin squeezes her hand, and they begin to chant.

Power builds like the heavy air before a thunderstorm; the lake begins to bubble, hissing like a great cat, and for a moment Blasine thinks she can hear a woman’s voice shouting out; her magic swells and spreads and then sears through her as the storm of power breaks around them.  Aithusa roars out, shielding them, and when Blasine turns her head Merlin’s eyes lock onto hers.  His nose is bleeding.

 _I’m so proud of you,_ he says in her mind even as they chant.   _We were always so proud of you, and he would be too.  Goodbye, Blasine._

The world explodes.

***

Blasine wakes propped up against a tree at the edge of a lake.  The island across the water is familiar, perhaps she’s been here before?  What she can’t figure out is how she got here in the first place.

Slowly she takes stock of her body; everything aches, and her head is pounding, and her hand is on her chest, fingers folded around a wooden pendant.  She loosens her grasp to look at it.   _A dragon’s wing_ , she thinks to herself.   _A gift from Merlin_.  The name comes to her immediately, but she can’t put a face to it.  Someone she knew when she was a child?  Someone who gave her a toy dragon, who knew her love of the old myths and fairy tales?

Befuddled, she tucks the pendant into her dress and gets to her feet.  She can see no horse nearby, nor tracks, but she’s wearing her sword, and there’s a cloth-tied pack at her feet.  It will be a long walk home to the citadel, but at least it won’t be a hungry one.


	18. Break Through the Gate of Memory

Arthur no longer has any sense of time, or his body, or the Tower around him.  Every sense is Merlin, the old man on the smooth striped road and back and back and back through a world that’s frightening in its strangeness, but grows incrementally more familiar.  Sometimes Merlin is young again, or some middling sort of age; he wears strange clothes and speaks strange languages, and most of all he seems to always be within a day’s walk of Avalon. 

It’s disorienting to watch Merlin’s shoulders slowly uncurl, to watch baffling technology devolve until he begins to understand it, to watch the village around the hill and the structures on it shift and unmake themselves.  

Then suddenly there is a long period of travel, to more places than Arthur ever dreamed there were in the world.  Dark jungles and frozen wastelands and bustling cities, Merlin sees them all, never letting the dust of his boots settle in any one place for long unless he’s undisturbed and utterly alone.

Finally, after what feels disturbingly like an eternity, Merlin returns to Avalon.  The lake that was gone before is back now, seemingly as Arthur remembers it.  He watches Merlin walk back to a gray-haired woman asleep against a tree.  He is kissing her forehead, and then she’s upright and he struggles to hold her, and then she opens her eyes and everything is  _ bright loud bright _ \--

Decades later (earlier), Arthur realizes the woman is his daughter.

***

It starts out as a day like any other.  Merlin wakes, stares at the ceiling, drags himself out of bed.  He takes his morning walk from his little cottage to the shops, past the Tor.  He picks out fresh bread and cheese and a bottle of wine, and walks back past the Tor again.  Everyone else sees it as it is on the surface; a terraced hill, the ruin of a 14th century church, a local landmark and a tourist draw.  When Merlin passes, out of the corner of his eye he can see underneath to the magic isle he hid away fifteen hundred years ago.

He pauses, feeling the tug of that hidden magic; it pulls and pulls at him, growing stronger as time goes by.  He’s worn thin by the long centuries of waiting, stretched like a rubber band between the magic place and the modern world.  He’s stopped wondering when Arthur will return.  

***

Watching Merlin’s life in Camelot, both after and before Arthur, is endlessly fascinating.  There’s so much he missed after he died, and so much he didn’t see when he was alive; many things make much more sense now than they ever did before.  It’s humbling, and infuriating, and heartbreaking.  Too quickly, Merlin is walking backward toward Ealdor and the life he had before Arthur ever knew him.  He grows younger and smaller until, at last, he’s a babe in young Hunith’s arms, eerily silent and eyes shining gold.

Slowly, Arthur blinks back to awareness in the Tower as if waking from a long, long sleep.  He takes his hand from Merlin’s shining life thread, but he still can’t quite take his eyes off of it.  “What now?” he asks the air, or perhaps the glowing thread.  He’s not expecting an answer, so he startles with a jerk when something trills softly in the window beside him.

A  _ dragon _ \--Aithusa, he remembers from his visions--is poking her white head in the window, face pinpricked with the lights of the threads.  She blinks her eyes at him, nostrils flaring as she stretches her neck to get closer.

Cautious, Arthur takes a step toward her, then another.  When she just continues to watch him and calmly sniff the air, he reaches out to touch her pinkish snout like he would a horse.  She blinks again, slowly, and makes a sound like a purr.  “Nice to meet you too,” he says softly.  “Have you been here all along?”  She waggles her head and snorts a smoky breath, and he can’t help but chuckle.

“Get on!” comes a faint female voice, and Arthur stares at Aithusa.

“Was that you?”

The dragon snorts, and the voice comes again.  “Arthur!  Down here!”

When he steps closer to the window and looks out, he discovers that the sun has risen; in the glittering surface of the lake far below, he can see the vague shape of Freya’s face.  “My Lady!”

“Aithusa will bring you down, I need to speak with you!” she shouts, and then the surface stirs in a breeze and she’s gone.

Arthur looks askance at Aithusa, whose slowly flapping wings hold her steady outside; then the dragon stretches her neck further into the room, offering.  “I don’t like this plan,” he tells her, smoothing his hands along her scales, “but I suppose if Merlin can do it, then so can I.”  Carefully he slides a leg over and grips her with arms and knees both, and a moment later his stomach flies up into his throat as they descend to the hill far below.

It’s over just as quickly, and he’s stumbling into the muddy grass at the edge of the water, dizzy.  “Thanks,” he mutters.  Aithusa snorts smoke at him again, and takes off in a great gust of wind, wheeling around the Tower and away out of sight.

Arthur steadies himself, then turns to the water.  “My Lady?”

Slowly, like a cloud moving into a recognizable shape, her face reappears.  “My Lord.”

“I’ve had quite a strange time since last we spoke,” he tells her, glad of a face even remotely friendly, and she smiles at him.

“I know you have.  But now your time here is coming to an end.”

A faint hope stirs in Arthur’s chest.  “What does that mean?”

“It means, Arthur Pendragon,” she says solemnly, “that you are needed.”

***

“Merlin!”

He pulls up short when he hears his name.  No one here knows that name--they call him Mr. Emrys in the village, or Barmy Old Emrys when they think he can’t hear.  Never Merlin.

“Merlin!” comes the voice again faint and wispy, and it chimes like a bell somewhere deep in his chest.

_ Freya? _

“Merlin, come!  It’s time!”

Heart pounding, he turns and stares at the Tor, and at the double image he sees beneath.  There is a flash of something, a glitter on that other shore like steel in the sunlight.

His bag falls unnoticed from his shoulder as he  _ reaches _ , into the air and underneath the world, and for the first time in a millennium and a half he steps through into the world of magic.

***

Freya shoves Arthur quickly and uncomfortably through the water, so he’s spluttering and feels half drowned by the time he gets his feet under him and his head above the surface.  It’s a slog in soaking wet armor and boots and cloak, but he wades along toward the shoreline wiping water and detritus out of his eyes.

When he can finally see clearly, Merlin is there on the shore in his old man disguise, frozen stiff and staring and wearing that ridiculous round hat.  Arthur stops too, brought to a standstill by the intensity of his gaze and the sudden thumping of his own heart in his chest.  Then the cold of the water really starts to sink into his skin, and he shivers.  “Well, Merlin?” he calls.  “Some help here?”

Merlin gives a hurt little cry, and from one eyeblink to the next he’s as young as Arthur saw him last and throwing himself recklessly into the water.  Arthur struggles forward to meet him, and then Merlin leaps on him with such force he almost knocks them both back into the drink.  Gangly limbs cinch vise-tight around him and a cold nose is pressed into his neck.  “ _ Arthur _ ,” Merlin rasps against his skin, then dissolves into trembling, helpless sobs.

Arthur, throat tight, just clutches him tightly and drags them both back to dry land.

***

When Merlin comes back to himself, Arthur has collapsed onto his backside at the edge of the water.  Merlin is curled in his lap, tucked under his chin, and it’s so unbearably wonderful that he almost doesn’t care about the hard armor and cold mail.  Then Arthur shivers minutely, and Merlin draws back to stare at him wide-eyed.  “You’re freezing!”  The words are rusty in his mouth, a language he hasn’t spoken in centuries but never entirely forgotten.

Arthur blinks at him like he’s trying not to laugh.  “Yes, Merlin.”

“You’re  _ alive _ !”

“ _ Yes,  _ Merlin.  Now, how about a fire?”

“Oh!”  Merlin snaps his fingers, and a bush bursts into flame, throwing off blessed heat.

“That’s better,” Arthur murmurs, eyes still locked on Merlin’s.  Then he rubs a gloved thumb gently over Merlin’s cheek.  “All cried out, you great girl?”

“You can’t say things like that anymore, I’m going to teach you feminism.”  Arthur gives a sideways grin at that, flashing his perfect crooked teeth, and Merlin has no choice but to grab him by the back of the head and kiss the living daylights out of him.

***

It’s a surprise, but not a surprise, when Merlin’s mouth crashes into his own.  It’s the easiest thing in the  _ world _ to pull Merlin in tighter, to tilt his head and open his mouth wider and offer his tongue.  It’s nothing like kissing Guinevere, but it’s every inch as thrilling and as necessary; there just was never time or space for this in their lives before.  Now seems like the  _ perfect _ time, so Arthur pulls the idiotic hat off Merlin’s head to bury his fingers in those dark curls.  Merlin groans, quiet and surprised, into Arthur’s mouth.  

They pull apart to breathe, both panting.  With an urgent little hum, Merlin peppers kisses all over Arthur’s face, his eyes and his nose and his cheeks and back to the corners of his mouth.  “Should get you home,” he murmurs between kisses, “get you dry.  And fed.”

Arthur rubs a thumb along the jut of bone behind Merlin’s ear.  “Yes please.”

It takes them considerably longer to actually get up.

***

Arthur looks even more incongruous when he’s inside Merlin’s little house, the cloak and armor he was buried in surreal against the battered orange sofa and the ancient television in the living room.  Arthur seems to feel it too; he looks down at himself as though he’s been wearing this for fifteen hundred years and it’s only just become uncomfortable.  He tugs as the ties of his damp cloak.  

“Help me with this, would you?”  Merlin takes the cloak and lays it over the arm of the couch, then reaches for the buckles on the pauldron, fumble-fingered.  It’s been too long, and the longer he looks at it the less he remembers what to do with the pieces.  Arthur scoffs a soft breath, tugging off his gloves to undo the vambraces himself, and Merlin suddenly,  _ desperately _ wants to be able to do this for him, to release him from that old life and bring him into this new one.  With a slow breath, Merlin lets his eyes unfocus, trusting muscle memory to guide him; it rises up through the murk of centuries to prompt his hands into motion.  Arthur stills as, bit by bit, Merlin lifts and tugs and strips him down to his worn tunic and trousers, and bends to pull off his boots.  When he stands again, Arthur is watching him with a ghost of a smile on his face.  Merlin smiles back, he can’t help it--Arthur is here, Arthur is  _ alive _ , in Merlin’s  _ house _ \--and then gives his sleeve a little tug.

“Come on.  I’ll draw you a bath.”

Arthur leans back against the sink while Merlin fills the bathtub.  He’s tempted to explain hot and cold running water, but Arthur doesn’t seem too surprised, just watches with quiet interest.  Merlin decides explanations can wait for another day.  “All right, hop in and get warm.”

“You’re soaked too,” Arthur points out, tugging his shirt up over his head and tossing it on the floor.  He drops his trousers and braes with equal nonchalance, testing the water with a toe.

Merlin is sorely tempted; his lips are still swollen from kissing.  “I’d better make us something to eat,” he says, but slides his hand along the nape of Arthur’s neck anyway.

Arthur smiles with squinted eyes, like he’s got Merlin all figured out.  “All right.”  Then he sinks down into the water, eyes fluttering closed.

A flush rises slowly to Merlin’s cheeks.  It’s only about the millionth time he’s seen Arthur naked, but it’s different now; he looks somewhat less than his fill at the muscled planes of Arthur’s body, at the smooth skin of his abdomen where a sword wound should be, at his cock in the shadow between his bent legs.  Then he retreats, Arthur’s low chuckle following him.

***

The bath is  _ divine. _  The hows of indoor plumbing still elude Arthur, but the whys are quite obvious.  Still, eventually he’s warmed and starting to wrinkle from the water, and the smell of frying meat is floating in from the kitchen.  Reluctantly he hauls himself out of the tub and dresses from the pile Merlin left him:  underthings that are oddly small and tight compared to what he’s used to but quite comfortable for all that, soft loose trousers, and a worn shirt that he seems to remember was called a “t.”  All in all, he’s never been so comfortable.

Merlin is similarly dressed when he finds him in the kitchen, poking a frying pan filled with food.  Turning to him with a bright, nervous smile, Merlin gestures to the table and chairs.  “Sit, it’s just ready.”  Arthur does, and in short order is presented with a plate of steaming food.  “There you are, my lord.”

“I’m not your king here, Merlin,” Arthur says, considering the plate.  Breakfast doesn’t seem to have changed very much, for which he is suddenly and ravenously grateful.  When he glances up again, most of a sausage stuffed in his mouth, Merlin is watching him with startling focus.  As if Arthur might vanish in between the second sausage and the eggs.

“You’re my king everywhere,” Merlin replies.

***

Even if Merlin had a spare room, there would be no question of where Arthur was going to sleep.  It’s only midday, but they’re both yawning from the food and the exertion, so Merlin dumps the dishes in the sink and tugs Arthur along to the bedroom.  In true kingly fashion, Arthur climbs in without hesitation and stretches out with a satisfied groan.  The sound makes Merlin flush again, and he sinks down gingerly on the other side.  Arthur’s arms are folded behind his head; Merlin lays his hand against the soft skin of his inner arm, pinkie finger tucked under the sleeve of his t-shirt.  That one point of contact soothes Merlin’s frazzled nerves, proof that Arthur is still here, solid, real.

Then Arthur shifts minutely toward him, eyes intent, and suddenly one point of contact is woefully inadequate.

They slide into each other’s space simultaneously, linking limbs together and pressing up warm and comfortable against each other.  Arthur kisses Merlin softly on the bridge of his nose.  

“What were you doing, all this time?” Merlin whispers, one hand tucked up under the back of Arthur’s shirt and stroking his spine.

Arthur rubs his nose along the side of Merlin’s, and fits their mouths together with a gentle press.  “Talking to some people,” he replies.  “And watching you.”

Merlin’s eyes are wide and bright in the dim room.  “Watching me?”

“Sort of,” Arthur amends.  “I got to see your life, but backward.  Like a...film?”

“Everything?” Merlin breathes nervously.

Arthur nods, hand finding Merlin’s hair again and smoothing through it.  “Everything.  I have to thank you all over again.”

“For what?”  Merlin looks dangerously close to tears again, so Arthur presses their foreheads together.

“For helping Guinevere raise our daughter.  For protecting me.  For waiting so long.”

“ _ Arthur _ ,” Merlin chokes out, and kisses him.  He is crying again now, Arthur can taste the salt, and he chases the taste with his tongue.  Merlin squirms deliciously in his arms until they’re pressed together from chest to hips with their legs all tangled.  Arthur can feel Merlin’s hot length up against the hollow of his hip, Merlin’s thigh firm between his legs.  He slides a hand to the small of Merlin’s back to hold him there, delighting in the smooth skin and downy fuzz under his fingers.

Merlin breaks the kiss and pants softly against his mouth.  “Why now?”

“Well,” Arthur replies, hitching his hips up against Merlin’s thigh, “I had a talk with your old girlfriend Freya.”

When Merlin speaks his hot breath blows along Arthur’s collarbone.  “What did she say?”

Arthur rolls his hips again and Merlin whines, rocking into the motion.  “She said that you couldn’t hold the magic apart from the world anymore.  That you shouldn’t.  That the world is suffering without it.”

“I was keeping you  _ safe _ ,” Merlin says, agonized, but he lets Arthur push and pull him into a rhythm.

Arthur nudges his face up to kiss him again.  “I know,” he soothes.  “But I’m here now.  I’m here so you can let it go.”  He wraps his leg around Merlin’s waist, though they can’t possibly get any closer without literally melding into one.

“The world’s-- _ oh _ \--the world’s not ready for...for magic,” Merlin groans out, hips kicking up the tempo.  “They think it’s a fairy tale.”

With a quiet moan Arthur slides one hand deeper in Merlin’s hair, and the other possessively down the back of his trousers.  “They’ll adjust,” he bites out, chasing the sweet friction of Merlin’s thigh and slowly leaking into his strange underclothes.

Merlin’s mouth slides along Arthur’s jaw to his throat and down to his shoulder, where his teeth scrape urgently at the muscle as he shakes his head.

“Yes,” Arthur says, “ _ Merlin _ , you have to let go.”

Merlin moans sharply into the meat of his shoulder, part denial and part urgent pleasure, but Arthur can feel the electric tingle of magic everywhere they’re touching.  Then Merlin lifts his face, and his eyes are glowing shocking gold.  “ _ Arthur.” _

Arthur lets his head fall back; his skin feels too tight and his chest might explode, and he’s hard as goddamn  _ steel _ .  Then Merlin’s hand skates up his ribs to touch his nipple, a light and curious rub, and lights go off behind his eyes.  He comes for a perfect eternity, shouting out his pleasure while Merlin’s glowing eyes bore into him, then floats twitching and and trembling back down to the incredible reality of Merlin rutting desperately into his hip.  

He grips Merlin’s arse through his underclothes, legs falling open to pull him in closer, and Merlin keens against his throat.  “Come on,” Arthur urges.  “ _ Let go _ .”

Magic  _ explodes _ out of Merlin in a gale of wind and a flash of light, and a long strained cry as he comes; Arthur wraps himself tight around him as he shudders through it with gasping breaths and shocked little moans.  Then Merlin’s crying, and laughing like an immeasurable weight has been lifted from him, and wiggling in between Arthur’s legs to squish their sticky wet groins together.

“Ugh, Merlin,” Arthur laughs against his ear.  “Disgusting.  Draw us another bath.”

Merlin snorts.  “I should maybe go out and see what I just did to  _ all of Albion _ ”

“Saved it,” Arthur says around a yawn.  “Saved the world with carnal relations.”

Merlin bursts into giggles, and it’s the best sound Arthur’s ever heard.

***

“Now, we presume from anecdotal evidence that the original Separation was geographically based--a physical split between magic and the land, bounded by loose geopolitical borders.  The area within these borders, what is now the UK and Ireland, is collectively referred to in this context as Albion.  I’m sure you’ve all heard that term thrown about, both correctly and not.  Albion as a place-name is a purely magical idea--but as magic is tied physically to the earth in which it lives, the definition can get sticky.

“We also now know, and magical scientists continue to prove, that magic exists everywhere in the world.  The latest studies show that the Separation of Albion actually weakened the rest of the world’s magic, and had lasting genetic effects on the magical population.  As far as we can tell, the pool of magic users everywhere shrunk over the course of the Separation, including within Albion itself.  At the time of the Change, less than ten percent of people living in Albion actually gained magical ability, and even fewer already had some magic, worldwide--if you’re interested in that, Professor Hayton will be teaching a course on magic and genetics next semester--but in the ten years following the Change, magical births worldwide have been on the rise.  This is called the surge effect:  the sudden influx of magic within Albion during the Change actually triggered an increase in magic everywhere else.

“This physical effect went hand-in-hand with huge social and political changes; not only were the UK and Ireland thrown into chaos, navigating government, law, human rights, even new science, but the prominence and undeniability of magic here brought forth social and political changes for magic users across the globe.  You lot are too young to really remember what that was like, but believe me, it wasn’t fun.”

There are some chuckles, but the class is restless; Merlin glances at the clock.  He's gone two minutes over.  "All right," he tells them.  "We'll pick up there on Tuesday, and then hopefully start on our Postmagical Government unit.  Please do at least the first reading for that!"

They erupt into motion and chatter, a cacophony of youthful noise.  Merlin turns back to his notes, and is stuffing everything haphazardly back into his bag when warm, familiar hands slide around his waist and a hard chin drops onto his shoulder.

“Postmagical Government!  Why don’t you just call it the King Arthur unit?”

Some of the students giggle, and there’s much shoving and whispering as they move en masse out the door; Merlin waits until they’ve gone before he twists around in Arthur’s arms.  “It’s not all about you, prat.  In fact, almost none of it is about you.”

Arthur is grinning, and he dives in for a kiss.  “Because you’re going to teach a whole class about me next semester?”

“You don’t even do anything, you’re just an advisor,” Merlin gripes, but submits to that kiss and several more.  Then he pats Arthur on the chest and tugs out of his hold.  “Come on, I just have to stop back at my office and then I’m done for the day.”

“All right,” Arthur agrees amiably, and shoves his hands in his pockets as they walk.  

Merlin’s office now is the same room where he lived as Court Sorcerer--or, at least, a copy of the same room.  One of the most noticeable surprises after the return of magic was Camelot castle, which quite handily rebuilt itself in the middle of a field from a buried ruin no one but Merlin had even known was there.  Once everyone who needed to be convinced had finally accepted that Arthur was, in fact,  _ the _ King Arthur, it was a simple matter to claim the castle in his name.  It was simpler still to donate the castle and lands to Oxford for the housing and development of a Magical Studies department.

Arthur, of course, still has the run of the place as he liked, which mostly means he drops in on Merlin at every opportunity.  It’s almost as if nothing at all has changed--Merlin is still busy, and Arthur is still striding around being important and getting in the way.

At the end of the day, though, they lock up Merlin’s office and walk, often hand-in-hand, across the campus.  At the edge of the grounds, where a charcoal-maker’s hut stood more than a thousand years ago, there now stands a comfortable two-floor house with a sunny, riotous garden.  The door and the shutters are painted Camelot red; the door knocker is a golden dragon.  Here, they close out the rest of the world, or throw the door open to make visitors welcome; here they laugh and fight and fuck and everything in between.

Here at last, for as much time as magic will give them, together.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Hang the Apple on the Tree](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039764) by [DYlogger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DYlogger/pseuds/DYlogger)




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